School & District Management

L.A. Schools Extend Contract of Acting Superintendent

By Corey Mitchell — May 13, 2015 1 min read
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The Los Angeles Unified school board voted unanimously to extend the contract of Superintendent Ramon C. Cortines through June 2016.

The school board hired Cortines in an acting superintendent role last fall after then-Superintendent John Deasy resigned under pressure.

This is Cortines’ third time leading the nation’s second-largest school district. He briefly led the district in 2000 and also served a stint as superintendent from January 2009 to April 2011.

When he took the helm this time around, Cortines accepted a contract that would have expired at the end of June.

The extension was approved in a closed-door session prior to Tuesday’s school board meeting, the Los Angeles Times reports. Terms of the deal were still under review, but nothing, including salary, was expected to change from the previous pact, a released from the school district indicated. The agreement will become public once the deal is finished, the release said. His current salary is $300,000 a year.

Cortines’ hiring paved the way for improved relations with the teachers’ union, contributing to a new contract settlement, which the board approved this week. The deal will provide teachers with a 10 percent pay increase over two years.

Cortines’ next challenge will be developing a new teacher evaluation system with the union, the L.A. Times reports. The search for a permanent superintendent for the 650,000-student district is still underway.

A version of this news article first appeared in the District Dossier blog.