Appeal dates set for LAUSD suit

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has been directed to file his initial arguments next Tuesday, Jan. 16, against a trial court’s ruling that derailed his efforts to gain control of the Los Angeles Unified School District.

The timeline, announced Jan. 9 by the 2nd District Court of Appeal, calls for LAUSD and its allies to respond with their own brief 30 days after the mayor’s filing. Richard Hamilton, executive director of CSBA’s Education Legal Alliance, welcomed the expedited schedule, which he said will lead to a court hearing in early April, with a decision by the appeals court to follow within 30 days after that.

ELA joined the district and parents in a lawsuit to overturn Assembly Bill 1381, the law that would have given the mayor a powerful role in running the state’s largest school district. In her ruling that the law was unconstitutional, Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Dzintra Janavs wrote that Villaraigosa was seeking “a role that is unprecedented in California.”