School Districts

If you are a teacher in debt, there's good news and bad news. There are literally dozens of programs that could potentially help wipe out your student loans. But most of them have narrow requirements that may lock you out. Just ask Troy Dale, a high school counselor from Ellis, Kan. He and his wife have $23,000 in student loans that they've been paying down for nearly a decade. At their current rate, they'll still be paying off their student debts when their oldest child enrolls in college.

A group of parents and students have filed a federal lawsuit against the Compton school district alleging a pattern of abuse and racial profiling of Latinos by school police. One family alleged that school police targeted a student's father for arrest and deliberately got him deported to Mexico after he filed a complaint against an officer. In another incident, school officers allegedly beat, pepper sprayed and used a chokehold on a bystander who was taking video of an arrest on his iPod, and erased cellphone videos taken by students.

A Superior Court judge has affirmed the right of high-quality charter schools to open new campuses without first seeking approval from local school districts. The Thursday decision opened the door for charter schools in California districts that have barred them entirely, even though such blanket resistance to charters is illegal. Although L.A. Unified has more charters than any district in the nation, some nearby district don't have any. The suit was brought by the California School Boards Assn.

WASHINGTON - Can a public high school hold its graduation ceremony in a local church? The Supreme Court has been pondering that question in its private conference for six weeks, discussing whether to take up a Wisconsin case that could reset the line separating church and state. Last year, the U.S. 7th Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago ruled that the Elmbrook School District, near Milwaukee, violated the 1st Amendment and its ban on "an establishment of religion" by holding a high school graduation ceremony in the sanctuary of an evangelical Christian church.

Gizelle Studevent was a 13-year-old eighth-grader at prestigious La Jolla Country Day School when the harassment began. She returned from a basketball tournament to find an unsigned note in her suitcase: Addressed to "Senorita," it mocked the girl's skills on the court and suggested she go home to Mexico. Over more than two years, an anonymous band of bullies tormented Gizelle. Their acts grew increasingly cruel -- on the Internet, in notes and around school. Finally, she transferred.

Joseph P. Zeronian, deputy superintendent of the Pasadena Unified School District and one-time acting superintendent, will leave the district Oct. 11 to enter private business. He will become vice president in charge of public finance for Prudential-Bache Securities in Los Angeles. Zeronian's departure is expected to have a major impact on the administration of the district, where he has held key positions for more than a decade. Supt. Phillip B.

It was the light fixtures that turned off the Castaic school district trustees. Since September 1994, they have been trying to secure millions of dollars in federal earthquake-mitigation funds to move the 638-student Castaic Elementary School, which sits in the shadow of the dam that holds back half-mile-long Castaic Lake and is bordered by high-voltage power lines and oil pipelines to boot. The paperwork pace has been maddeningly slow, board members say.

Los Angeles school officials on Monday urged parents whose children attend chronically underperforming schools to apply for free tutoring in math and English, which begins in November. The Los Angeles Unified School District mailed applications earlier this month to 186,000 students, from 104 schools, who are eligible for the extra assistance.

SACRAMENTO - California voters have yet to strongly embrace Gov. Jerry Brown's controversial plan to shift money from rich schools to poor ones, an ominous sign as he works to win support for the idea from skeptical lawmakers and the state's powerful teachers unions. A new USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll found that 50% of respondents agreed with such a move, to help school districts that serve low-income children and English-language learners. But a significant minority, 39%, opposed the plan, which is embedded in the governor's budget blueprint and is the centerpiece of his education agenda.

The stress was overwhelming. For years, this veteran teacher had received exemplary evaluations but now was feeling pressured to raise her students' test scores. Her principal criticized her teaching and would show up to take notes on her class. She knew the material would be used against her one day. "My principal told me right to my face that she — she was feeling sorry for me because I don't know how to teach," the instructor said. The Los Angeles educator, who did not want to be identified, is one of about three dozen in the state accused this year of cheating, lesser misconduct or mistakes on standardized achievement tests.

Cheerleaders in a small Texas town can continue to display their Bible verse banners at football games, after a district judge ruled Wednesday that their actions did not violate the Constitution. The cheerleaders in the football-dominated town of Kountze garnered national attention when they sued the school district in a case that pitted free-speech rights and religious freedom against the doctrine of separation of church and state. Hardin County 365th Judicial District Court Judge Stephen Thomas said the banners that included religious messages - such as "If God is for us, who can be against us?

Los Angeles County supervisors rejected a bid Tuesday from several Santa Clarita Valley school districts and a water district hoping to consolidate elections in a bid to avoid the kind of voting rights lawsuits that other local governments have been hit with. The measure failed on a 2-2 vote, with Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas abstaining. County election officials opposed the change, arguing that shifting the districts to November even-year elections would exceed their ability to conduct elections.

SACRAMENTO - Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday promised lawmakers "the battle of their lives" if they balk at his bid to overhaul state education. A day after Democratic state senators announced their differences with him over his proposal to change the way schools are funded, the governor came out swinging. "This is not an ordinary legislative measure. This is a cause," a combative Brown said at a Capitol news conference, flanked by 20 school superintendents who support his program.

SACRAMENTO - The state Assembly approved $24 million Thursday to speed up the confiscation of guns from Californians who are not allowed to own them because of criminal convictions or serious mental illness. A day earlier, lawmakers rejected a plan to allow school districts to train teachers and administrators to use guns to protect campuses. Legislators said the money they allocated would pay for 36 additional agents to capture 39,000 guns from people who bought them legally but were later disqualified because of a subsequent conviction or court order.

A state legislative committee on Wednesday rejected a proposal to allow school districts to train teachers and administrators to use guns to protect campuses against armed intruders. Only one member of the seven-member Assembly Education Committee voted for the bill introduced by Assemblyman Tim Donnelly (R-Twin Peaks) in response to the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut. “What we're talking about is protecting kids,” Donnelly told the committee regarding AB 202. Assemblywoman Joan Buchanan (D-Alamo)

A school district in southeastern Los Angeles County is illegally diluting the voting clout of Latinos and barring them from elective office by using an at-large electoral system for school board races, according to a lawsuit filed this week. No Latino has been elected to the seven-member board in the ABC Unified School District since 1997, although the ethnic group makes up nearly one-fourth of adults of voting age, according to the lawsuit filed by MALDEF, a leading Latino legal civil rights organization, and the Los Angeles law firm of Goldstein, Borgen, Dardarian & Ho. The district encompasses 30 schools in Artesia, Cerritos, Hawaiian Gardens and portions of Lakewood, Long Beach and Norwalk.

Worried that they could be liable for students falling into trances and being harmed, three North County school districts have banned performances by hypnotists at school assemblies and other functions. Trustees of the Carlsbad Unified School District late Wednesday adopted a policy prohibiting hypnosis demonstrations in response to an incident in March when 14-year-old Tiffany Smith went into a trance while watching a hypnotist perform at Carlsbad High School.

School officials, send your sexy emails from home. Nancy Sebring was a promising superintendent in the Des Moines Public Schools who, like many other superintendents , was hopping to the next job. In her case, she was to lead the Omaha Public Schools in Nebraska. But after reporters dug up explicit emails that she had sent to a lover from her work account and had tried to cover up, both school districts have been embroiled in controversy. You might consider this an anatomy of a hiring catastrophe.

Parents at 24th Street Elementary School have overwhelmingly chosen a partnership between the Los Angeles Unified School District and a charter operator to run the persistently low-performing Jefferson Park campus. Among those eligible to cast ballots, 80% chose a district collaboration with Crown Preparatory Academy, which already runs a middle school out of surplus classrooms on the campus. Next fall, the district will manage kindergarten through fourth grade and the charter will handle students in grades five through eight.

SACRAMENTO -- Senate leader Darrell Steinberg wants to slam the brakes on any talk of tinkering with local tax rules. Democratic lawmakers have floated the possibility of making it easier for school districts to raise parcel taxes and change the way property taxes are calculated for commercial buildings. The proposals involve modifying Proposition 13, the landmark constitutional amendment that limited taxes in 1978. Steinberg (D-Sacramento) told reporters Wednesday that he doesn't want to hear about it, at least not in 2013.