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Howard Blume

With portraits of school children behind him, Los Angeles Unified School District Superintendent John Deasy takes his seat following a closed-door meeting of the Board of Education in downtown Los Angeles Tuesday, Feb. 7, 2012. Prosecutors have filed a lewd-acts complaint against the second of two teachers removed from a Los Angeles-area elementary school, and the Board voted to fire him in the closed-door meeting. On Monday night Deasy said that more than 120 staff members at Miramonte Elementary School — everyone from the principal and teachers to the cafeteria workers — were being replaced because a full investigation of the allegations will be disruptive and staffers will require support to get through the scandal. (AP Photo/Reed Saxon)

Distrubing letters from teacher's aide to pupil being investigated

Dalina Castellanos, Howard Blume Los Angeles Times

Last updated Wednesday, February 8, 2012 - 11:28am

LOS ANGELES -- In June 2009, the mother of a fourth-grader made a discovery that is now the latest incident under investigation at Miramonte Elementary School: a teacher's aide was allegedly writing love letters to her 11-year-old son.

Bondage, Child Abuse, Lewdness, School, Teacher misconduct, Teachers, National Read more Comments

In this undated police booking photo released by the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department shows former Los Angeles teacher Mark Berndt, 61, who was arrested for felony molestation of 23 kids after photos surfaced. Berndt been charged with committing lewd acts with 23 boys and girls ages 7 to 10. AP Photo/ Los Angeles Sheriff's Department)

Teacher accused of outrageous lewd acts was previously investigated

Howard Blume, Richard Winton Los Angeles Times

Last updated Thursday, February 2, 2012 - 6:15pm

LOS ANGELES -- A veteran Los Angeles teacher charged this week with lewd acts on 23 children was also investigated in 1994 after a girl reported that he tried to fondle her, sheriff's officials said.

Crime, Child Abuse, Lewdness, Teacher, National Read more Comments

Marshall High School senior Manny Hernandez discussed homework during a meeting with a Los Angeles Times reporter in Los Angeles, California on June 17, 2011. (Francine Orr/Los Angeles Times/MCT)

New homework policy gives students a break

Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times McClatchy Newspapers

Last updated Monday, June 27, 2011 - 10:14am

LOS ANGELES -- Vanessa Perez was a homework scofflaw. The Marshall High School senior didn't finish all of it -- largely because she worked 24 hours a week at a Subway sandwich shop.

Alvaro Ramirez, a junior at the Santee Education Complex, doesn't have his own room and his mother baby-sits young children at night. "They're always there and they're always loud," he said, explaining his challenges with homework.

The Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation's second-largest school system, has decided to give students like these a break. A new policy decrees that homework can count for only 10 percent of a student's grade.

Critics -- mostly teachers -- worry that the policy will encourage students to slack off assigned work and even reward those who already disregard assignments. And they say it could penalize hardworking students who receive higher marks for effort.

Schools, Features, Homework, Students Read more Comments

Anne Cusack/Los Angeles Times/MCT
Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck heads to a news conference at Hale Middle School after a Los Angeles School District police officer was shot in the vicinity of nearby El Camino Real High School in the Woodland Hills section of Los Angeles, California, on January 19, 2011.

Parents irate over school lockdowns

Andrew Blankstein, Howard Blume, Los Angeles Times

Last updated Friday, January 21, 2011 - 2:03pm

LOS ANGELES -- Thousands of students were kept in classrooms without food, water or access to restrooms longer than necessary, the Los Angeles school district's police chief acknowledged Thursday, as officials coped with complaints from parents frustrated once more with the district's handling of an emergency situation.

Students from nine San Fernando Valley schools were in lockdown for as long as five hours as officers combed campuses and neighborhoods for a suspect who shot and wounded a school police officer Wednesday just outside El Camino Real High School in the Woodland Hills section of Los Angeles.

Although lockdowns are the most common school crisis in the nation's second-largest school district, the Los Angeles Unified School District has repeatedly faced problems providing basic provisions and services for students.

Schools, Lockdown, National Read more Comments