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Last November, Los Angeles Unified School District lawyers fighting a civil lawsuit argued in court that a 14-year-old middle school student was mature enough to consent to having sex with her 28-year-old teacher, and that she bore some responsibility for what happened. The district's attorneys also introduced the girl's sexual history into the trial as part of their defense strategy. Two legal experts sharply criticized the school district for using those tactics. They also said the case highlights a little-known conflict in California law: while the age of consent is firmly set at 18 in criminal cases, at least two...

Facing multimillion dollar sex-abuse settlements, Los Angeles Unified signed contracts Friday to buy five liability insurance policies for the next fiscal year starting Monday, but was unable to get coverage for molestation, officials said. The premiums total $2.2 million -- about $1 million less than LAUSD paid this year -- but exclude coverage for molestation, a spokesman said. .. Details of the policies, including the names of the carriers and the total amount of coverage, were unavailable. ... It also has offered to pay $17 million to settle 40 additional claims, .. The district had been counting on insurance to...

They call it "teacher jail" - the administrative offices where nearly 300 Los Angeles Unified educators accused of misconduct spend months on end reading, blogging or texting. The cost is enormous: $1.4 million a month in salaries while district and law-enforcement investigations proceed, and $865,000 to hire substitutes to fulfill their classroom duties. Los Angeles Unified officials insist the cost is worth it - the price the district has to pay for years of downplaying or ignoring suspected abuse. That practice exploded into a major scandal in February with revelations of longtime patterns of misconduct by teachers at Telfair Elementary...

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA.com) — Officials with the Los Angeles Unified School District on Wednesday warned of more layoffs and a shortened school year if voters reject the proposed tax increases on Election Day. KNX 1070′s John Brooks reports that while school staff is prohibited by law from arguing for or against ballot measures, that hasn’t stopped them from describing a so-called “doomsday” scenario for the district. In a carefully worded briefing to the school board’s Budget Committee on Tuesday, Chief Financial Officer Megan Reilly predicted major layoffs and program cuts without the much-needed cash infusion from Propositions 30 or 38....

LOS ANGELES (CBS) — Planned Parenthood and the Los Angeles Unified School District have teamed up in an unusual collaboration to reduce the number of unplanned teen pregnancies at Roosevelt High School. Students can visit the on-campus health clinic to get free birth control, pregnancy tests, counseling and screening for sexually transmitted diseases – the first program of its kind in the country, according to the Los Angeles Times. Birth rates among teenagers are down throughout California and Los Angeles County, but certain areas within the county, like the heavily Latino and low-income neighborhood around Roosevelt High School, buck that...

A mother and child walk past Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies in front of Miramonte Elementary, where an accused teacher is alleged to have given gifts to a student A public meeting called by L.A. school officials to discuss the arrest of two teachers accused of abusing students at a South Los Angeles elementary school turned ugly as angry parents accused the district of a cover-up.

An attorney representing a student at Miramonte Elementary School said Friday children were pulled from after-school programs and other teachers' classes to take part in "tasting games" at the center of lewd conduct charges against fired teacher Mark Berndt. In these games, children were photographed while blindfolded and asked to taste a liquid that police now believe to be the semen Berndt, who was arrested Monday. Attorney Brian E. Claypool said his client was 9 when her photograph was taken by Berndt, although she was not his student. FULL COVERAGE: Mark Berndt Claypool said Berndt had two ways of getting...

L.A. schools Supt. John Deasy has called for changes to laws that protect the rights of teachers accused of heinous acts, saying they should be subject to faster dismissal and the loss of pay, benefits and pensions. Deasy made his comments on KNX-AM (1070) radio in response to reports by The Times that a former teacher charged with lewd conduct with nearly two dozen students receives lifetime health benefits from the L.A. Unified School District and a pension of nearly $4,000 a month from the state teachers’ retirement system.

L.A. Schools' Healthful Lunch Menu Panned By Students For many students, Los Angeles Unified's introduction of healthful lunches — part of a campaign against obesity, diabetes and other problems — has been a flop. The district says the menu will be revised. By Teresa Watanabe December 17, 2011 It's lunchtime at Van Nuys High School and students stream into the cafeteria to check out the day's fare: black bean burgers, tostada salad, fresh pears and other items on a new healthful menu introduced this year by the Los Angeles Unified School District. But Iraides Renteria and Mayra Gutierrez don't even...

California schools must meet a January deadline to include LGBT history in their curricula. In 10th grade English at Los Angeles’ Grover Cleveland High School, Danielle Taklender's students read the book "Luna" by Julie Anne Peters. It's a story about a transgender teen. Taklender has been teaching the book for seven years without any fanfare or push back. It’s getting noticed now as her school district takes the lead in developing a plan to comply with the first state law mandating lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender history and social science curricula. The California law, which takes effect in January, stops...

Patricia McAllister, who leapt to fame for her proud and succinctly expressed (18 second video here) Jew hatred at OWS Los Angeles, has been fired by the Los Angeles Unified School District. (snip) We can expect more from the Jew haters, to the effect that this incident proves the Jews pull the strings. But will the ACLU or other purported free speech advocates make an issue of Ms. McAllister? My guess is not.

Los Angeles schools Supt. John Deasy condemned the alleged anti-Semitic remarks by a district employee taking part in the Occupy Los Angeles protest and said she would no longer work for the school system. In a video that gained traction in the conservative blogosphere, Patricia McAllister, a substitute teacher for L.A. Unified, said that Jews run the nation's banking infrastructure and should be forced from the U.S. "I think that the Zionist Jews who are running these big banks and our Federal Reserve, which is not run by the federal government -- they need to be run out of this...

DOWNTOWN LOS ANGELES (KABC) -- A strong showing is expected in downtown Los Angeles on Tuesday, as more people join the sweeping movement sparked by Occupy Wall Street protesters. Demonstrators with the Occupy L.A. group have been living in tents outside of City Hall for about two weeks protesting against what they call corporate greed. On Tuesday, the teacher's union will join Occupy L.A. in a march to LAUSD headquarters where the school board will be meeting. They are looking to start a second occupation site to protest teacher layoffs. The union wants the district to re-hire the 1,200 teachers...

A woman named Patricia McAllister who identified herself as a Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) employee was interviewed by Reason TV at one of the Occupy Protests occurring around the country. During the interview McAllister states “the Zionist Jews who are running these big banks and the Federal Reserve, which is not run by the Federal Government, they need to be run out of this country.” The question is; how will LAUSD respond to Patricia McAllister’s remarks? A Google search of fired for being Tea Party member returned nearly 13 million hits. An assistant district attorney was fired in...

Here’s one of the protesters Reason.tv spoke to at Occupy Wall Street in Los Angeles on October 12, 2011. She identifies herself as Patricia McAllister and as an employee of Los Angeles Unified School District. “I think that the Zionist Jews, who are running these big banks and our Federal Reserve, which is not run by the federal government… they need to be run out of this country,” she said.

Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday signed into law a measure ... addressing controversy over an anti-abortion demonstration. Assemblyman Tony Mendoza (D-Artesia) said he wrote the measure in response to a March 2003 incident in which graphic images of an aborted fetus were mounted on a vehicle and driven past a middle school in Rancho Palos Verdes. "Because of the disturbing nature of the photographs, some students at the scene became angry, some began to cry...’’ Mendoza said. The bill was signed three years after a federal court found that the 1st Amendment rights of anti-abortion activists were violated when they...

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 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% of a student's grade. Critics — mostly teachers —...

The L.A. school board's decision to stop serving flavored milks on campuses is just the beginning. A menu overhaul is underway that will mean fewer meals that resemble fast food and more vegetarian offerings. Spinach tortellini in butternut squash sauce and California sushi rolls, along with many ethnic foods, are to be added. Corn dogs, chicken nuggets and other breaded items are out, said Dennis Barrett, food services director. Megan Bomba, a project coordinator with Occidental College's Urban and Environmental Policy Institute, agreed with the move, saying "the meal needs to be better, not [that] we need to keep chocolate...

The Los Angeles school district will hold a shortened day of classes on May 13 to accommodate a planned teachers union protest without interrupting standardized testing on most campuses. Dismissal time will vary from school to school but could be up to several hours earlier than normal. Schools will be required to make up the lost time from the shortened day later in the year, according to Los Angeles Unified School District officials. The teachers' demonstration is aimed at encouraging state legislators to place tax extensions on the fall ballot to provide continued funding to school districts. L.A. Unified faces...

Los Angeles schools will remove high-sugar chocolate- and strawberry-flavored milk from their lunch and breakfast menus after food activists campaigned for the change, L.A. schools Supt. John Deasy announced this week. Deasy revealed his intent, which will require approval by the Los Angeles Unified Board of Education, during an appearance with celebrity chef Jamie Oliver on "Jimmy Kimmel Live!" Tuesday night. The policy change is part of a carefully negotiated happy ending between the Los Angeles Unified School District and Oliver. The chef's confrontations with the school system became a main theme in the current season of the TV reality...