Los Angeles Daily News

If your mom or dad pluck a few strands of hair from your head while you're sleeping, you could soon have some explaining to do.

CANOGA PARK - A month after the county announced plans to close a nationally acclaimed school with a reputation for helping troubled teens, the school's founder says it is staying open. Last month the Los Angeles County Office of Education announced the West Valley Leadership Academy and 17 other schools would close this summer because of decreasing student enrollment and funds.

If Los Angeles Unified officials decide Thursday to place a $7 billion bond on the fall ballot, they are expected to campaign on a plan to build small schools of 500 students or less.

Los Angeles Unified School District officials are considering asking voters to approve a $7 billion bond measure in November, more than twice as big as previously discussed and nearly half of it set aside for unspecified future projects.

Amid concerns that voters may hesitate to approve a fifth multibillion-dollar school construction bond in a decade, Los Angeles Unified officials and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa have crafted a proposal to woo the public with promises to fund charter schools and small learning communities.

Sharply disputing a state report, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa on Thursday said he believes the dropout rate at Los Angeles schools is even worse than the dismal 33 percent estimated by state officials. Villaraigosa, who previously used the dropout-rate issue as leverage to take control of a handful of schools, said the new state figures released Wednesday did not take into account all relevant factors. For example, he said, the state report did not count students who dropped out before ninth grade

By George B. Sánchez
Los Angeles Unified officials are considering opening as many as five long-closed school sites in the San Fernando Valley to house hundreds of charter school students.

Amid growing demand for space on Los Angeles Unified campuses, the district is prepared to offer regulatory help to as many as 10 charter schools by exempting them from city and county zoning ordinances next year.

As part of her job as a special-education assistant at Byrd Middle School in Sun Valley, Desiree Young knows what it's like to change diapers every day. But recently her focus has shifted, knowing similar jobs could disappear thanks to massive budget cuts that would cripple the school system she has believed in for nearly two decades.

SHERMAN OAKS - They came far to reach this moment - the math whiz and the music prodigy, the geography expert and the history buff. For the 16 teenagers in blue caps and gowns, graduation from Village Glen High School on Friday meant more than crossing into adulthood.

Charter schools in the San Fernando Valley, already among the highest-performing schools in LAUSD, are outperforming their traditional counterparts, a study released Tuesday by the California Charter Schools Association said.

LOS ANGELES - Four school districts and a charter academy in Los Angeles and Orange counties were awarded federal nearly $2 million in grants Wednesday to improve readiness and emergency preparedness programs.
The Garden Grove Unified School District received the largest sum among the 16 California recipients -- $925,409. The other Southland grants recipients are:

Los Angeles County middle school students are the forgotten generation, according to a study released Thursday by United Way that found 400,000 students in seventh through ninth grades are among the most vulnerable in a system that is under-funded and lacks qualified teachers.

Alarmed by slumping student achievement at Los Angeles Unified middle schools, district officials are moving this summer to roll out several programs designed to improve performance amid criticism that middle-schoolers have been overlooked for too long.

Nielson Weng always expected it would take hard work to get into college - but he never imagined it would be quite this suspenseful. Weng is a prize catch for colleges - valedictorian at El Camino Real High, president of six school clubs, an immigrant success story. But despite all that, he's been placed on the waiting lists at five colleges to which he applied.