LA Unified reconstitutes another low-performing school - Belmont High

The Los Angeles Unified School District has moved to reconstitute another low performing high school. It's the 8-year-old Belmont High School just west of downtown L.A.

The move means that after the end of this school year all Belmont High teachers and staff will have to reapply for their jobs. The school district says the federal No Child Left Behind law gives it the authority to make such a drastic move.

Dale Vigil, the area superintendent overseeing Belmont, said that even though the campus has made strong gains in test scores in the last two years the vast majority of students are not proficient in English and math.

Vigil said charter school operators would not be brought in to run Belmont High as is planned for the forthcoming overhaul of Jordan High School. The teachers union said the district did little to work with teachers at Jordan High and opposed a similar overhaul of Fremont High a year ago.

The plan for Belmont High, Vigil says, is to keep the school’s three learning academies and teach students in Mandarin, Spanish and English.