Former superintendent Ramon Cortines with 20th Street families over the summer. (Photo by Omar Calvillo.)

LA Unified has rejected a parent petition to take over a failing elementary school in South Central Los Angeles, reversing district policy and essentially asserting that no California school qualifies under the state “parent trigger” law.

Parents of 20th Street Elementary School were informed of the district’s rejection in a letter late Saturday, the last day the district had to notify the parents. They had hoped to be able to take over the school and possibly create a charter through the state’s Parent Empowerment Act, or parent trigger, which has been used twice to help under-performing LA Unified schools.

“We are so disappointed, all the parents are really upset,” said Guadalupe Aragon, one of the parents who started the petition drive. “We just want our children to have the same opportunities to get to college that other children in the district have, and this was our only way to do it. We are very angry.”

After two years of trying to get changes at the school, and dropping the threatened trigger by the parents at least once, the 20th Street Parents Union filed again last month to take over the school with 57 percent of the families (the parents of 342 students) signing a petition.

“This is shameful,” said former California state senator Gloria Romero, who authored the law, after reading the district’s letter. “They have a brand new superintendent and she is harking to the past, in a sense. Where is the leadership? It’s supposed to be a new game with LA being unified. This does not bode well for the spirit of the law.”

The law was passed in 2010 and used at two LA Unified schools in 2013. That year, statewide tests were suspended in anticipation of computerized tests based on the Common Core State Standards. The following year former Superintendent John Deasy argued that the district was exempt, for one year, from the parent trigger by a federal waiver from the federal No Child Left Behind law that allowed LA Unified and seven other California school districts to create their own metrics for academic performance in the temporary absence of statewide standards.

One of the first things interim Superintendent Ramon Cortines did when he took over was to reverse Deasy’s edict and lift the ban on parent triggers. King worked under both Deasy and Cortines.

King and her staff met with parents only five days before the letter was sent out rejecting their petition. The meeting last Monday, held at district headquarters, was called by King and also attended by representatives of Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, which was brought in by the district to see if it might be a solution for the parents.

Joan Sullivan, CEO for Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, said she was invited to attend the meeting at the district to offer some sort of solution for 20th Street. Partnership was offering a hybrid of a charter and traditional school as an option, which they have done in 17 schools over the past eight years in the South Central LA area.

“Parents are asking for a choice, and we could offer a good option,” said Sullivan said. “We take on whole schools and support them with the current student body and most of the staff and use the parent involvement and voice.”

At last week’s meeting, the district “never told us that our school may not be eligible or that there was any problem with our petition,” Aragon said.

In a statement Monday to LA School Report, King said, “Some parents were dissatisfied with our efforts and filed petitions under the Parent Empowerment Act to change the governance structure of 20th Street Elementary School. Because the law doesn’t apply to this situation, we returned the petitions. However, we remain committed to working with parents to address all concerns in a timely manner.”

The letter to the parents, written by LAUSD General Counsel David Holmquist, gave four reasons why the parents’ petition was denied, including some of the same reasoning that Deasy used.

20th Street Parents Union meeting.

First, the letter said the school doesn’t have an Academic Performance Index under 800 as the law requires. That’s not true, according to Gabe Rose of Parent Revolution, a group that helps parents organize and take over a failing campus. He said the API score of the school is based on the past three years of scores, and 20th Street has a score of 765. There is no API score for this school year because the state suspension of testing.

Second, the letter notes that a school must fail to show Adequate Yearly Progress (AYP), but the district letter states that 20th Street has in fact improved, based on state data released in December. However, the AYP no longer measures test scores, because of the suspension in testing, but simply measures the attendance of students during the test. LA Unified released data showing that 20th Street has 96.29 percent attendance compared to 95 percent for the district.

The Anaheim School District used a similar argument regarding AYP to to fight a parent trigger at Palm Lane Elementary School, but it was rejected by a judge last summer. The district has appealed the ruling.

Third, the district said that a federal waiver granted to the California Office to Reform Education, or CORE, exempted the district and “relieved LAUSD from the requirements of taking improvement actions,” according to the letter by Holmquist. But the U.S. Department of Education, which granted the waiver and was asked to clarify its conditions, stated at the time that neither the federal government nor any other entity can override a state law.

In its fourth reason for rejecting the 20th Street petition, LA Unified said the parents didn’t state whether they wanted to have a solution within the district or create an independent charter school. But according to the state trigger law, parents’ petitions are not required to state their preferences. Aragon and other parents said they always had the intention of entertaining charter management organizations to help their school.

One of those is Magnolia Public Schools, led by CEO Caprice Young, a former LA Unified school board member. She said, “We absolutely want to support the families of 20th Street Elementary School, and we know we have a phenomenal program that can help them. We like working with proactive families, and this shows that LAUSD does not want parents to be involved, otherwise they would support this.”

Young said she remembered when Cortines reversed Deasy’s initial stance against the triggers, and said, “LAUSD has a moral obligation to uphold this.”

Romero said the district shouldn’t waste taxpayer money fighting parents on this issue, especially since she created the law to avoid just that. The law firm of Kirkland & Ellis has offered to handle the legal issues for parent triggers at no cost throughout the state.

Mark Holscher, a partner at Kirkland & Ellis, said his firm is helping the parents in communities that couldn’t afford legal representation on their own. He said he cannot discuss any plans yet that the 20th Street parents may have about pursing a case against LA Unified but did say the situation is very similar to the one they represented in Anaheim.

“The LA Unified School District sent our clients an email on Saturday and said they were inspired by the courageous conversations of the parent leaders, but those are empty words,” Holscher said. “What they’ve done is refuse to even consider the parent trigger law. Parents tried to work with the district on the last petition. LAUSD didn’t honor what they said they would do. They can’t ignore the Parent Empowerment Act.”

In response, King said, “LA Unified is committed to partnering with all parents of 20th Street Elementary School to provide our students with high quality learning opportunities and to help them succeed. We are continuing to strengthen instructional supports and enhance social-emotional and parent-engagement programs that are essential to the school community. We look forward to working with the school community to build a unified vision that addresses the needs of all students.”

Romero said the district must do more. “Ultimately, the parents and schools will prevail,” Romero said. “LAUSD needs to read the law. It would be in the best interest of reform for LA Unified to accept the parent petition and not fight the parents. The sacrifice is that they are losing more time for kids. It’s shameful.”

This article has been corrected to note the year that John Deasy requested the one-year exemption, which was in 2013, and that the Anaheim School District had used the AYP argument in its rejection of the Palm Lane trigger, not the CORE waiver argument. 

A photo compilation of the famous from Fairfax High alone.

If you’re at Crenshaw High School, wouldn’t you want to know that baseball legend Darryl Strawberry graduated from there? How about that “Star Wars” composer John Williams went to North Hollywood High, or that Leonardo DiCaprio dropped out of his junior year at the Los Angeles Center for Enriched Studies so he could pursue acting?

For the first time, LAUSD has a collection of famous alumni, which was presented to the school board last week by a team of volunteers.

The collection of famous names shows a history of Los Angeles. Director Quentin Tarantino developed his love for movies while attending Narbonne High and later got a job at a video store. Iconic director Frank Capra got interested in the theater while at Manual Arts High. In his junior year, tennis great Pancho Gonzalez left Jefferson High to go pro. Business leaders like Kirk Kerkorian (Riis High), Michael Ovitz (Birmingham), “father of the Internet” Vint Cerf (Van Nuys High) and video game producer Mike Morhaime (Granada Hills) were inspired at their schools for their future professions.

Some great bands were created among high school friends who went to school together, groups such as Los Lobos (Garfield High), Toto (Grant High), The Platters (Jefferson High), The Whispers (Jordan), Black-Eyed Peas (Palisades), The Doors (University High), The Turtles (Westchester) and Guns & Roses and Red Hot Chili Peppers (Fairfax High).

“We had great fun in compiling this,” said Bob Collins, a retired LAUSD chief instructional officer, who worked with his wife Sandy Collins, a retired Columbus Middle School principal, and Grant Francis, who taught at Venice High School for 33 years. “This was a labor of love by everyone involved.”

They spent at least 1,000 hours of research and writing mini-profiles of alum from the 51 LAUSD high schools. They were helped by librarians, principals, students, district staff, school alumni associations, genealogical sites and hall of fame organizations.

They had an initial list of more than 10,000 names, but narrowed the field to 1,226 distinguished names. “Just because you played pro football didn’t get you on the list; you had to have a definable impact on the community, nation or state,” Bob Collins said. “We had thousands who are movie stars, but you had to have some significance.” And so, they found dozens of Academy Award, Emmy and Grammy winners, as well as scores of medal-winning Olympians and Hall-of-Fame athletes.

Even though they just finished their 359-page spiral-bound “Alumni History and Hall of Fame Project,” they know it’s not complete. “We already have people coming up to us saying, ‘You don’t have so-and-so,’” said Collins. “We know there will be a second edition we hope to complete by September.”

Francis suggested to the school board that “you bring back a paid archivist who worked part time at the district.”

Superintendent Michelle King recalled that her predecessor Ramon Cortines gave his thumbs-up to the project and the Collinses “did some incredible work to highlight the great folks who have come through LA Unified and have gone on to contribute significantly in the state and country.”

One of the interesting sidelights the research team discovered is the number of teachers who have inspired and trained famous people. Collins mentioned a teacher in the 1930s who taught iconic photographers, and anothre at Manual Arts High who taught Jackson Pollock and other notable artists. A Chatsworth High drama teacher helped launch the careers of two-time Academy Award winner Kevin Spacey as well as Val Kilmer, Stephanie Kramer and Mare Winningham. Director J.J. Abrams recently talked about his teacher at Palisades being an inspiration for a new character in “Star Wars: The Force Awakens.”

“We hope to add teachers as well to this list, and show how they had a powerful influence on their students,” Collins said.

Some people on the list went had won notoriety for reasons beyond their fame.

Actress Sharon Tate who was murdered by the Charles Manson Family went to Hollywood High. Ritchie Vallens, who died in a plane crash, went to San Fernando High. Oliver Goodall, one of the Tuskegee Airmen who was arrested for protesting the U.S. Army’s segregationist practices, went to Washington High. Music impressario Phil Spector went to Fairfax High and later was convicted of murdering an actress. Journalist Daniel Pearl was beheaded by al-Qaeda while investigating a story and Donald Sterling, who went to Roosevelt High, made racist comments and lost the ownership of the Los Angeles Clippers because of it.

Collins plans to focus on the positive role models, such as Rosemary LaPlanche from Marshall High, who won Miss America in 1941 the same year she gradated, or Grammy-winning conductor Michael Thomas who discovered his love of music at Walter Reed Middle School before graduating from North Hollywood High. There’s Don Perry who went to Venice High and set a world record for climbing a vertical rope in 2.8 seconds, and the Smothers Brothers, Tom and Dick, who went to Verdugo Hills High.

The district is now trying to determine what to do with the information and how to make the list available to the public.

Collins said he hopes that this will spark a continuing oral history project or create documentaries that could air on KLCS, the district PBS station. He also said the project could incorporate English, journalism or history students to continue the work.

She’s the ideal superintendent for LA Unified. For right now.

After all the time and expense — especially the time — district officials spent searching for a successor to Ramon Cortines, the decision to remove the “interim” from King’s job title was the right call —  but maybe not only for the obvious reason, King’s three decades of experience in LA Unified as a teacher, principal and administrator.

More critically, she was the right choice for this particular board — seven people who have lost their taste for a free-lance thinker and would prefer a leader whose problem solving more comports with accepted custom and tradition in LA Unified. In other words, the board wanted someone whose vision was more in line with board group-think than a superintendent clambering along a road less traveled for novel solutions.

Part of all that is the familiarity these board members have with King, a trusted, efficient, loyal aide whose career trajectory was a testament to such old-fashioned concepts as success, collegiality and collaboration.

But there appears more to the choice, as well, and it has to do with the new superintendent’s inheritance — a district on the edge, always on the edge, through serious and unrelenting structural issues that threaten a quality public education for children through no fault of their own.

Unlike new superintendents elsewhere, King is assuming command at a time the spectrum of challenges makes it easy to raise the district’s ultimate and existential question: Is it simply too big to deliver the kind of education hoped for and promised by those in charge of delivering it?

Just think about events of the last six to 12 months: An independent financial review panel has predicted near-at-hand deficits that could reach as much as $600 million. One of its recommendations is cutting back union benefits and pension while the teachers union, for one, has vowed not to let that happen.

The district is losing nearly three percent of its students every year, costing hundreds of thousands in lost state and federal revenues, many of them moving on to charter schools. And the hemorrhaging now comes as charter school groups are mounting a major plan to pull even more kids out of traditional district schools.

Further, academic performance across the district, as measured by the new state tests, was awful, raising questions about the usual culprits of tests, testing, teaching methods, learning abilities, bad neighborhoods, English deficit, something else, anything else. In any case, it’s a major challenge to show improve in the next round, this spring.

No doubt the search firm hired by the district produced a slate of admirable candidates with education backgrounds, including Kelvin Adams, who has won great acclaim for turning around the St. Louis school district as superintendent. Adams was the runner-up. Other candidates also drew high marks from the board, like Richard Carranza, the superintendent of San francisco Unified, who withdrew for unstated reasons but one probably that he was outed in media speculation as a candidate.

But all the also-rans have one thing in common: The districts they lead are far smaller than LA Unified in size, scope, budget and challenge. Adams, for example, oversees 27,000 students with an annual budget of $285 million. LA Unified has 644,000 kids and a budget of $12 billion.

From a practical standpoint, that gives King the added advantage of serving as superintendent starting today, a seamless transition from Cortines, rather than a time months from now after an outsider fathomed the magnitude of the job, not to mention the personalities of the board members in charge.

That difference, alone, makes King the best choice to lead LA Unified through its current briar patch of issues. If she guides it through successfully and demonstrates the political skills to balance competing interests in every issue before her, the board will have no further need of a search firm anytime soon.

It’s time, right?

We’ve known for ages that Ramon Cortines was stepping down as LA Unified superintendent. The process to replace him has been going on for months, and the end appears in sight.

So, here are 10 reasons why we might know the new boss on Monday, when the board is scheduled to meet again. (But don’t hold us to it.)

1) Monday is an odd day for a meeting.

2) The starting time, 4 pm, allows the board to stage a press conference in time for the 5 pm local news.

3) Board president Steve Zimmer needs a break. Imagine his exhaustion, trying to convince such a disparate group — the other 6 board members — to agree on something (anything) of this magnitude.

4) The LA Times has run out of people to speculate about, causing them to drop out of consideration.

5) Any more speculation by the LA Times would eliminate the remaining candidates.

6) David Tokofsky has exhausted his supply of theories as to who it will be.

7) The board needs something else to talk about at the first regular meeting of the new year, which is the following day.

8) The board needs someone to take the heat for continuing problems posed by El Nino storms and the Porter Ranch methane cloud.

9) Cortines is unavailable.

10) We’re tired of writing about it.

The school board members began a closed session at 9 a.m. and returned at 2:15 p.m. to say they will resume the search discussions on Monday, Jan. 11 at 4 p.m., with the board’s regular monthly meeting scheduled for the next day.

School board president Steve Zimmer said after the adjournment that the delay has nothing to do with the announcement by San Francisco school Superintendent Richard Carranza that he is not seeking the job. Zimmer said he could not confirm nor deny that Carranza was in consideration and said the process is confidential.

“I respect the work that Mr. Carranza has done in his district, and he is certainly a great superintendent, and he wrote the letter that he thought was appropriate for his board,” Zimmer said.

Meanwhile, Zimmer said the board is on track to getting an appointment for LAUSD by the end of the month. He said he believes the board is taking the “appropriate amount of time” and that they have “diverse candidates.”

“It is truly one of the great honors and privileges to get to the right decision; it is very hard work,” Zimmer said. “There is not one moment in which the weight of this decision and those who are affected by it, have not been present in all of us in the room.”

The issues involved in the Playa Vista Elementary School dispute are a microcosm of complexities within the second largest school district in the country. They involve noise and air pollution, freeways and airports, pitting charter schools with traditional public schools, school over-crowding, district budget cuts and an increase in demand to teach the students’ parents in an ever-growing adult education program at LAUSD.

And, it also involves classism: With the area in question a part of Los Angeles that includes million dollar beach houses and families with yachts as well as some of the most notorious gang-infested housing projects in the city, where do children go to school?

The friction began when Playa Vista Elementary opened in 2012, offering a highly-regarded STEM program for kindergarten through fifth grades. It had 26 classrooms at the time but has now grown to 540 students with no more space available. New housing under construction nearby suggests that by 2020, the school will need to accommodate 400 more students in 14 more classrooms.

A proposal will move fourth and fifth graders from Playa Vista to Wright Middle School by the 2016-2017 school year. Wright also has 19 classrooms on campus for the Westside Innovative School House charter elementary school (WISH). The district is looking for a new home for the charter classes and is considering renovating the adult school at Emerson, which was originally built as an elementary school.

Now, there are families who want a separate middle school for the area. Playa Vista families even issued a press release in that regard. Parent and longtime resident Lisa Hamor said the conflict has resulted in “pitting schools against schools, and potentially students against students with little or no regard for our students or our existing school communities and their desire for a quality education.”

Parents and students protest outside of Playa Vista Elementary

The school board voted to conduct a feasibility study to see about locating the charter school at the Westchester-Emerson Community Adult School and upgrading Wright’s science lab, as it seeks to deal with increasing enrollment at the local schools — one of the only areas in Los Angeles where enrollment is burgeoning.

Underlying any final decision are issues of diversity.

In one of his final speeches as superintendent, made at last month’s board meeting, Ramon Cortines recounted how the issues are playing out across the district. He drew hisses and boos from the audience when he said, “I’m going say it the way it is, I’ve been to these schools, I’ve spent 60 years of my life dealing with the issue of integration, and I know some of you will disagree with me: One of the issues that you as community are going to have to face is the class issue.”

He added: “There are some people in our schools that don’t want to go to school with those children, based on class.”

A woman in the audience shook her head, and he pointed to her. “Ma’am, I see you saying it’s not true. I’ve seen it, and I have gotten the letters that it is true,” he said. “So I’m saying that together in working on an instructional plan, you are going to have to face that head on because there are people that feel they are entitled because of where they live, and I am saying you can’t escape it anymore.”

Cortines continued despite audible protests. “Our children need to grow up in an education that deals with all levels of socio-economics, all levels of ethnic and cultural diversity. We cannot escape it anymore. And this school district and this area needs to be a model of that.”

School board president Steve Zimmer, whose district includes these and nine feeder schools, said he apologized for past miscommunications about solutions but cautioned all sides of the issues to approach solutions in a respectful manner.

“I will not take responsibility for way people have treated each other, and the idea that somehow we’ve created the animosity, that is about something else,” he said. “We must take this difficult and painful journey together.”

Local teacher, Kelly Morisaki, who is also a Westchester resident, said, “We already have a successful program at Orville Wright; make our middle school better. There is no reason for division and separation.”

Board member Mónica Ratliff questioned why WISH was getting preferential treatment about the move, and she said she didn’t like the idea of turning an adult school into a charter school.

Rene Mitchell, who is continuing her education at Emerson Adult School said, “What I see is my hopes and dream for future slipping away again. Do not deprive us of this school.” And, Gabriel Scott, who attended Emerson to get adult education said, “My class is filled with adults who want an education, and Emerson is in a perfect location now, don’t change it.”

Cortines said he toured the campuses on several occasions to figure out what works best. He said that adult education is expanding, and there is a waiting list of 16,000 for some LAUSD programs.

The school board voted (with Ratliff against) to add four classrooms at Playa Vista and to renovate up to five existing classrooms at Wright to create flexible learning/science labs and study the viability of sites and possible relocation of the Emerson adult school.

Zimmer told his board colleagues that the issue will not easily fade away, conceding that they are complex disputes “coming soon,” he said, “to a district near you.”

The finish line is in view. In all likelihood, by this time next week, LA Unified will have its next superintendent.

Just who that will be remains uncertain to the world beyond the seven board members and a few district officials. The process has been moving along at a relatively brisk pace, considering the enormity of the job, and to the board’s credit, there have been no leaks.

But it’s not that difficult to speculate on the kind off superintendent this board wants to lead the district: In short, the person selected will have qualifications, background and political savvy as close to Ramon Cortines and as far from John Deasy as possible.

More than anything, this board does not want a superintendent with a strong, independent vision or aggressive agenda: Cortines won the board’s love by anticipating where the majority of support lies on a given issue, then acting on it. He also offered wise counsel, reflecting his decades of work in administration.

But as in any other high-profile election —  and that is what this is, with board members who view public education through vastly different prisms — the winning candidate will not satisfy every constituent group on every important issue.

More than likely, the new superintendent will come from a mid-sized to large school district that has been run effectively and without the drama usually present here as it plays out in opposing philosophical views about charter schools and the ever-present challenge to satisfy the district’s largest labor partners.

Given the size of LA Unified as measured by its budget, student population, facilities and needs, there is likely not a Super-superintendent in the wings. The choice will be a mortal, with more strengths than weaknesses, but weaknesses nonetheless; more of a collaborator than a decider, more a steady doubles hitter than a home run threat who strikes out as often as clears the bases.

If that is, indeed, the ideal candidate, and more than one candidate remains under consideration, the final choice in a city as diverse as Los Angeles could be determined by demographics: Since 1937, LA Unified boards have tended to choose white men, with an occasional black (David Brewer) and Latino (Ruben Zacarias, Cortines). What they have never chosen is a woman.

The guess here is that any of the remaining candidates would be acceptable to the board, and the person selected will be the one judged to have the highest ratio of assets to liabilities, gender notwithstanding. And the only element of skin that will matter is not the color but the thickness, for the criticism sure to follow.

The board’s conversation is scheduled to continue in another closed session tomorrow —  the seventh devoted to the selection — and an announcement would follow if a vote by the members produces a replacement for the retired Ramon Cortines.

While there is some expectation that a new superintendent could be named tomorrow, it’s more likely that the new superintendent would be announced at some point during the board’s regularly monthly meeting on Jan. 12. Meanwhile, Michelle King, a deputy to Cortines, is serving as an interim.

Whoever is selected would become the district’s 16th different leader since 1937, bearing in mind that Cortines has served three times. All of them have been men.

Our two reporters here at LA School Report, Craig Clough and Mike Szymanski, both have kids in school. What they don’t have is a shared opinion about LA Unified’s decision on Tuesday to close down schools in response to an emailed threat of violence that proved to be empty.

So here, in a reasoned conversation, are their views on the situation:

Q: What did you think when you heard all the LAUSD schools were being closed due to a terror threat?

SZYMANSKI: I was getting Donovan ready for middle school, when my sister (who teaches at the school) went in early only to learn there was a Level 1 threat alert and no one could enter the school. She stayed to help parents and kids, explaining that school was closed for the day.

Of course, after watching the televised press conference and making a few phone calls and posting a story, I went back up to check on the young teenager. He was back in bed with the covers pulled up. He had been ready for finals that he studied for late the night before and had a project ready to turn in.

“Are you glad you’re not going to school?” I asked

“Yeah, I guess, it sounds pretty crazy out there,” he answered. “It’s a day off.”

CLOUGH: I have a daughter in a transitional kindergarten program at a school in Pasadena. We were in the car about five minutes away when I heard over the radio that all LA Unified schools had been closed due to an emailed terror threat.

Pasadena wasn’t mentioned in the report, but it is certainly close enough to LA to be alarmed — if there were anything to be alarmed about. My reaction to the news? I drove her to school, dropped her off and waved goodbye.

Coordinated terrorist attacks don’t come with a preview warning. There was certainly no warning before 9/11, no warning before the San Bernardino shootings, no warning before the Boston Marathon bombing and no warning before the Paris attacks. I dropped my daughter off because of all the bad things I knew that could happen in the LA area that day, a coordinated terrorist attack on schools was clearly not going to be one of them.

Q: Was it the right decision to close all district schools?

SZYMANSKI: I’ve heard parents say they were inconvenienced; I heard other critics say LAUSD overreacted, but then I saw at the press conferences the faces of the school board, Ramon Cortines and the mayor and the sheriff, and I knew they had the best interest of our kids in mind. None of the school board members or Cortines have kids going to district schools, but they all have people close to them attending the schools and working there.

LAPD police chief Charlie Beck said it best when he pointed out that the officials should treat the situation as if it were their own kids. I think that’s what the district did. In covering these school officials with different opinions on everything, but where they come together is the safety of all the children.

Were I to have heard the threat made that morning? I probably would have kept Donovan home, for just a day, just in case, out of the “abundance of caution,” as the district did.

CLOUGH: Michael O’Hare, a professor at UC Berkeley’s Goldman School of Public Policy, said this of the decision: “What L.A. demonstrated was leadership incompetent to make good decisions, willing to say nonsense and manage with slogans.”

I think that is putting it nicely.

Now that we’ve had a chance to read the full, ridiculous, stupid email, it is easy to see this was the kind of short-sighted, penny-wise-but-pound-foolish decision that helps you win the battle but lose the war.

Whoever becomes the next superintendent, it’s going to be 10 times harder for him or her to close down the district in the face of another threat, even if the next email carries a little more credibility. And since the closures made headlines around the world, every whacko, nut job and actual ISIS jihadist with an Internet connection just saw exactly how much panic they can cause with a single email. The chance of the district’s receiving similar threats just went up a thousandfold, and this decision did not make the district’s kids safer.

Q: Do Angelenos, district parents and teachers support the decision? 

SZYMANSKI: It’s unfair to second guess LA Unified’s decision. I think it made the schools safer to be able to test-run their emergency systems. I think officials found some holes in the system that will be fixed if, and when, this happens again. For everyone, it was a major inconvenience, but, wow, did the city come together.

LAUSD school board president Steve Zimmer and I chatted about how amazing all the elements came together. The FBI jumped in, 13 police agencies helped with the school sweeps, the Metro system let kids ride for free, museums agreed to let kids in for free that day, libraries stayed open late, and some places fed the kids that wouldn’t get their lunch that day. The press conferences had every major safety official in the city right there, talking to the public, allaying fears.

A lot of us in the press corps have kids who were affected. Many of us were angry, and wanted answers. I just hope that this doesn’t have anyone else afraid to do the same thing, thinking it’s another “cry wolf” false alarm.

I can’t help but think a few years ago when Donovan was in elementary school and the news of the Sandy Hook shootings happened right in the middle of the school winter concert. Parents were buzzing, texting and answering phones and upsetting the kids. One teacher told her kids briefly what happened and then said, “The show must go on, big smiles, let’s sing!” Kids from that class are still seeing therapists about that incident.

We live in a world where we can’t shelter our kids from things like this now. We have to figure out how to talk to them about it better. I do feel safer knowing, though, that we have a school system looking out for the safety of our kids, even if it is to an excess.

CLOUGH: While I don’t agree at all with the decision, the thought of violence against children is so horrifying I think most people would support a decision that in the moment seemed like the safest bet. I do think my opinion is perhaps in the minority, and may even offend some.

Yesterday, I was sitting at a park bench watching my daughter play when a man with a baby in his arms approached and struck up a conversation. His other daughter was playing with mine and he was very friendly and talkative. We chatted about the neighborhood for five minutes before he asked me if I had heard about the LAUSD school closings.

As I shared with him my views, the man got quieter and mumbled something along the lines of, “Yeah, I would just hate to be the guy who has to make the decision. I think you play it safe and close down.” I countered with why it didn’t make us safer. He seemed unconvinced.

After his baby made a slight noise, he got up, and wandered off without even a “nice to meet you.” I’m thinking he didn’t agree with me.

The closed session agenda includes “Unrepresented Employee: Superintendent or Acting/Interim Superintendent of Schools,” an item that would seem to make sense, given the time of year and pace of the search process.

In recent weeks, the board has been narrowing the list of candidates to a few and conducting final vetting. While it’s possible the search could reach a conclusion this month, with an announcement of the new district leader as early as next week, it would now seem more likely that by naming a place-holder, the board eases pressure on itself and puts the announcement off until early January.

It would also leave the district in safe hands as the winter break approaches. After tomorrow, classroom instruction closes down for three weeks, and the district’s administrative offices for two.

If the plan is, indeed, to name an interim, the most likely candidate is Michelle King, who was chief deputy to Cortines. King had raised her hand last year to fill in as superintendent after the resignation of John Deasy. Cortines’s quick return made the gesture unnecessary.

Telling, too, was King’s brief appearance at the microphone during final news conference on Tuesday when the district announced that schools would reopen the next day, following a clean sweep of campuses after an email threat of violence.

As she spoke, Cortines stood quietly in a crowd of officials behind her.

That decision was made by LA Unified Superintendent Ramon Cortines, who was supposed to be on his way to retirement this week.

“I made the decision to close the schools,” Cortines said at a morning press conference, flanked by the leaders of the city, the police chief, the sheriff and the school board.

Already seeming to anticipate criticism for causing such a commotion across the city by shutting down the schools, Garcetti said, “Decisions need to be made in a matter of minutes.” He was concerned that if this threat turned out to be a simple scare he doesn’t want it to result in people not speaking up the next time a threat may occur.

“We want freedom and liberty, but also to be safe,” the mayor said, referring people to the Los Angeles tipline iWatch.

The city was put in a Level 1 alert, and Garcetti said, “It is my number one priority keeping the city safe, whether or not anything happens.”

Los Angeles County Sheriff Jim McDonnell also touted Cortines’s brave decision “to ensure that 700,000 young people are safe.”

Los Angeles Police Chief Charlie Beck pointed out, “It’s very easy in hindsight to criticize the decision when you have no responsibility.” He said that Cortines’s decision was based on solid facts to make the determination. “Southern California has been through a lot in recent weeks,” Beck said, alluding to the mass shootings in San Bernardino.

Board member Mónica García said, “No one takes closing the district lightly, it’s a massive undertaking. Believe me, this decision was not taken lightly.”

UTLA president Alex Caputo-Pearl said he was awakened around 6:30 in the morning by a call from assistant superintendent Michelle King and told about the school shut-down. Within a few minutes, school board superintendent Steve Zimmer also called.

“They didn’t have many details but said there was a credible threat, and I trust their judgment on the issue,” said Caputo-Pearl, who spent much of the day at district headquarters. “I’m here to help out any way we can.”

Zimmer said he was impressed with how the different agencies throughout the city reacted to the threat. “I have never been prouder to be a Los Angeleno than I have been in the last four hours,” he said at the morning press conference. “This is not an easy situation. The only thing that’s more important than our education is the safety of our children.”

School board member George McKenna said that the day off from school was an educational experience. “It isn’t wasted time, we’re going through the educational process right now. Teach your children we wanted to do this on their behalf.”

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Ramon Cortines at a press conference

• UPDATED

All LAUSD schools were closed today due to a “serious threat” called into the district.

The threat was not aimed at any specific school, but was judged credible enough for school officials to close all the campuses, which serve 643,000 students in 900 traditional and 200 charter schools.

“This is a rare threat, we get threats all the time, but due to the circumstances in neighboring San Bernardino and what’s happening in the nation, what happening internationally, I as superintendent am not going to take the chance with the life of a student,” Ramon Cortines, the out-going superintendent, said at an impromptu press conference.

He later confirmed reports that the threat came to the district “from overseas.” Shannon Haber, the district spokeswoman, confirmed that an email was sent to a member of the school board last night suggesting a threat involving “backpacks or packages.” She also said the email came from an IP address in Frankfurt, Germany.

The New York Times reported that New York City officials said that they had received a similar threat but had concluded that it was a hoax. The paper quoted Mayor Bill de Blasio saying he was “absolutely convinced” that there was no danger to schoolchildren in New York.

Cortines said schools would remain closed until the authorities have searched all school sites and determined they were safe for students and staff to return. He said the district would issue a statement later in the day, with an update on the results. He also said that city police and the FBI were assisting with the threat assessment.

In a statement, Mayor Eric Garcetti said, “As Mayor, we have shared our support and our intelligence and LAPD is working in collaboration with LAUSD School Police to fully investigate this threat. We have also asked our Emergency Operations Center to be activated and we have arranged for MTA to help by providing free bus rides to all LAUSD students. We will continue to monitor this situation.”

School board president Steve Zimmer spoke directly to families and employees of parents with children, asking that employers consider flexibility with single mothers and parents of children in school. “The safety of the students and every employee is absolute,” Zimmer said.

“Nothing is more important than the safety of kids, even more than their education, and the board feels this appropriate at this time,” he said.

Neither Cortines nor Steve Zipperman, chief of the LA Unified school police, disclosed any details of the threat, other than to say “a message” reached the district early this morning and was deemed serious enough to take extraordinary action.

“This was not to one school, two schools or three schools,”: Cortines said of the threat. “It was to many schools. It did not specifically identify any of them.”

Zimmer said, “It’s going to be a long day, we will make sure that every campus is secure.”

The following school districts remained open: Azusa, Baldwin Park, Bassett, Bellflower, Little Lake City, Lynwood, Montebello, Norwalk-La Mirada, Pomona, Santa Monica-Malibu and Whittier Union High School.

• Adds details of how threat was conveyed, threat to schools in New York City and statement from LA Mayor Eric Garcetti.

His last full workday was last Friday, and it included an emergency meeting with the Southern California Gas Company to get the latest update on a gas leak in Porter Ranch and how it affects the safety of two nearby schools. The safety of the students remains a primary concern for the 83-year-old superintendent, who is bidding farewell to the district for the third time.

As a personal joke, Cortines created a “For Rent” sign and taped it to the outside of his office on the 24th floor of the Beaudry St. headquarters.

It’s been one year and one month since he took over after John Deasy resigned in a wave of controversy. Cortines bookended Deasy’s tenure, serving from 2009 to 2011 before retiring the first time. He also served in 2000 as superintendent before Roy Romer was named to the position.

Everyone knew Cortines had planned to leave by the end of this calendar year, and he pushed the school board to find a successor, a process now in the final stages. A week before school started this year, he gave his State-of-the-District speech at Garfield High School, also knowing it would be the last time he would address a large gathering of teachers and principals.

He used that time to talk directly to the school board—and to tease them–saying, “I’ve been blessed to share many unforgettable memories with them. Well some of them. I’m reminded of my many meetings with Mr. [Richard] Vladovic in his field office–the Starbucks in San Pedro.”

He recalled “Ms. [Mónica] Ratliff asking just one more question after we have tirelessly attempted to answer 20 before. Mr. [Steve] Zimmer meticulously answering every question in detail. Dr. [George] McKenna conveying his point with poetry and passion. And the cheerleader Ms. [Mónica] García, going ‘Hello people!’”

Cortines mentioned the two newly-elected board members Ref Rodriguez and Scott Schmerelson, and said, “Our diversity is what makes us strong, but our unity is what makes us unstoppable.”

Impromptu celebrations and good-byes have been going on all month. In late November just before the Thanksgiving break, he thanked the Instructional Technology Initiative Task Force and said he hopes to see it continue his vision of bringing technology to every student. Students surprised him with an hour-long singing tribute from various schools, including the Ramon C. Cortines School of Visual and Performing Arts. The school board took a break from a meeting to attend a reception for him.

Last week, Cortines visited the MiSiS computer team and thanked the members for their support and work. They, in turn, gave him a large wine goblet.

Cortines said to the team, “I am so pleased with the progress that’s been made in so many areas. It will never be perfect. Education is not perfect. It is constantly evolving. We have taken a lot of steps together this year, but there are a lot more rungs to go.”

He has given a few speeches in recent weeks calling for unity in the district and the board’s commitment to remember the students, one of the reasons Zimmer has referred to him as “America’s superintendent.”

When Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez spent a day with him last week before conducting a public interview, the writer noted, “This is a man who is beloved. To go through the building with this guy, they are star struck with smiles on their faces. They all want their time with Mr. Cortines.”

Cortines has been self-effacing in response to the appreciation and accolades but hasn’t missed a chance to poke fun at himself. When the lights in the school board meeting room recently flickered off, he quipped, “I did it; it’s an act of god.”

Then before last week’s board meeting he ended, he took the opportunity to leave the room quietly, without further attention.

He gave a final interview to Barbara Jones, a member of the district communications staff who used to cover him as a reporter for the Los Angeles Daily News. He modestly shrugged off his accomplishments and told her, “I should have been put out to pasture long ago. There should have been people much younger than I am who were able to take the situation that we were in and say, ‘OK, we can fix it.’”

He said he wants to do a lot of reading when he retires and has a stack of books waiting in the library of his Pasadena home.

He sent a memo out on Friday noting that he will no longer be in his office due to his retirement, and asked all memos to go to Deputy Chief Superintendent Michelle King.

He ended with, “I also want to take this opportunity to say that serving the students and the LAUSD community has been one of the most challenging, enthralling, and most rewarding endeavors of my career. I take with me the wonderful memories of our schools, students and staff that I will reflect upon and smile about often.”

Steve Zimmer is not happy.

In a highly unusual move, LAUSD school board president Steve Zimmer issued a statement late last night, criticizing the Los Angeles Times for speculating who might become the district’s next superintendent.

“We hope that the speculation on the part of the LA Times in an article published this evening does not cause harm or controversy for any of the individuals named in the article,” Zimmer said in the statement sent out after 10 p.m. “We have committed to the individuals whom we will interview that we will maintain confidentiality around their possible candidacy. We hope the LA Times will honor that commitment moving forward.”

Zimmer was reacting to a story that once again threw out names of potential candidates for the top spot at LA Unified. It was the second time the paper posited a list of potential successors to Ramon Cortines, following a November story that identified 43 potential candidates, ranking them according to their perceived chances.

But now, timing is crucial. The school board is in the process of winnowing the list of candidates to a final few from a starting pool of about 100, and it’s all being conducted in secret even though a few of the school board members had expressed interest in making the entire process public. The number of people involved in this part of the selection process is believed to be fewer than a dozen, including the seven board members, district lawyers and the board secretariat.

It’s also the last full week for Cortines, 83,  who has been privately saying good-bye to staff and departments over the past month, and even faced a surprise party.

Zimmer has remained protective of the secret search process, rebuffing persistent media inquiries seeking confirmation of potential candidates and inquiries about the search’s closed sessions. The seven-member elected board is holding a meeting this Sunday at 9:30 a.m. and another on Dec. 15. Last week, the interviews were held in a downtown office building to protect the identities of potential candidates coming to speak to the board.

The board could announce a selection as early as the 15th but more likely after a two-week winter break, in early January.

In his statement, Zimmer emphasized that the board “is committed to finding the best leader to guide our school district in the coming years. We request that the media and the community honor the decision to conduct a confidential search and allow us to do the job that we were elected to do on behalf of the students, families and school communities of LAUSD and the residents of our district.”

He added, “The purpose of conducting a confidential search was to ensure the best possible candidates could apply to lead what we believe to be the most important school district in the nation.”

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Rafe Esquith poses with students for one of his books.

More salacious charges against celebrated teacher Rafe Esquith were released this week, and for the first time LAUSD superintendent Ramon Cortines commented publicly about the case.

At a forum last night, Cortines said he was surprised about the charges but stood behind the district for taking action, once its investigation was complete.

“For me, six months ago it would be hard to believe about a teacher, yet the evidence was there, and yet when we said there was something about it, the school district was highly criticized,” Cortines said. “And now it has been proven that the school district indeed did handle it correctly.”

The case led to Esquith’s dismissal and a $1 billion lawsuit against LAUSD filed by lawyers on his behalf, seeking to end the district’s “teacher jail” program.

One of Esquith’s lawyers, Ben Meiselas, denied all of the charges against Esquith and said the release of the documents continues “an obvious witch hunt” by the district.

“The release of discredited and baseless allegations with no validation in law or any court, and the piecemeal, out-of-context release of an email from a graduate from years ago reflects the depths of retaliation and retribution from LAUSD on its last throes of existence due to the class action brought against it by thousands of teachers who have been victims to LAUSD teacher witch-hunts,” Meiselas said.

He also said the district improperly hacked into the teacher’s personal email account.

“No student, or parent – to this day – has ever made any allegation against Mr. Esquith,” said Meiselas, who instead pointed to the many who have demonstrated on the teacher’s behalf. “In fact, LAUSD’s hit squad invaded the homes and colleges of these students demanding that they say something negative about Mr. Esquith and threatening to return if they did not. The students had nothing negative to say. Several former students have hired attorneys and will be bringing lawsuits against LAUSD for the harassment and abuse inflicted on them by LAUSD investigators at the direction of Superintendent Cortines.”

Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Police Department has the information provided by the district and is conducting its own investigation in the juvenile division.

Cortines said, “We are in a business that has humans; we are doing a better screening of all employees, teachers and classified.”

In the latest information revealed after a Los Angeles Times public records request, Esquith was fired on seven charges, including immoral and unprofessional conduct, dishonesty and failure to follow and obey school laws. A 32-page document by the district, dated Sept 30, 2015, outlines its version of the claims, several reflecting accounts from former students. Previously, all the documentation and discussion presented to the school board was held in closed sessions.

The details include when Esquith worked in the after school program of the Westside Jewish Community Center in the mid-1970s. In one instance it says Esquith accused a student of plagiarizing homework and in front of a group of students “slapped ‘M’ in the face, punched ‘M’ in the head and struck ‘M’ with the papers from the assignment.”

The charges also include details of a series of graphic instances in which Esquith was accused of highly improper sexual behavior involving students and teachers, some of it involving sexual contact.

Other charges involve student trips under the auspices of Esquith’s group, the Hobart Shakespeareans. Some trips had 30 students but only the Esquith and his wife as chaperones. The district said Esquith charged the students $100 a month, which was paid directly to the teacher with no receipts given. The teacher told them it was for expenses of the trips.

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Steve Lopez interviews Ramon Cortines

* UPDATED

In what may be his last public appearance as superintendent of LA Unified, Ramon Cortines last night spoke to about 300 people in a wide-ranging discussion that touched on many of the hot-button issues now confronting the district.

Sitting alongside Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez, who served as moderator, Cortines said Eli Broad’s plan to expand charter schools in the district was “ill advised” and that the charter wars underway in the district could not only hurt education, but the entire city. He also said he had warned that the district’s computer system was going to face problems and that he even suggested the district not buy the Beaudry headquarters building because it was “flawed.”

And, he criticized the elected school board system, saying that they sometimes hamper his job. “If they do their jobs correctly, they represent the community,” he said, adding, “Too often, they represent their own ideology and political issues.”

Cortines, 83, is ending his third run as LA Unified superintendent, with plans to step down before the end of the month, and probably sooner. The board is in the final stages of selecting a successor, who would be the 16th district superintendent since 1937.

As far as the Great Public Schools Now plan, the offshoot of the Broad foundation initiative introduced over the summer, Cortines said, “I do know Eli and I worked with him off and on for years … I think he was ill advised, I think that somebody brought him an elixir without having it been tested to see if it would really do what it’s promised to do.”

He noted that “the rhetoric has been toned down” but said the growing charter disputes “will not be good for this city.”

Of the district’s current group of charters, Cortines said some are not good about taking special need students with severe disabilities. He noted some exceptions, but said, “Some charters get carried away, saying ‘Yes we have x number of children with special needs,’ but they are not the severely handicapped that the regular schools deal with every day.”

“A city divided on education issues will not make the economic progress that it should,” Cortines said. “That is why we have to collaborate not only for education, but for the economy of this city. A city divided does not do well. We need to learn to disagree in a respectful way.”

In a statement, Swati Pandey, spokeswoman for The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, said “Ray Cortines reached out to Mr. Broad this morning to offer his support for Great Public Schools Now, and Mr. Broad encouraged him to meet with the leadership of that organization. It will take a collaborative effort by the community, educators, funders, the district and many others to ensure every family in Los Angeles has access to a high-quality public school, and we look forward to working together on behalf of our city’s students.”

The conversation played to a capacity crowd at the Los Angeles Times building and was sponsored by Education Matters, which receives some money from the Broad Foundation. With LAUSD school board president Steve Zimmer and vice president George McKenna sitting in the front row, Cortines invited parents and students to bring their issues to him in his last remaining days.

Lopez joked about Cortines even leaving for real, saying, “I was in his office this morning, but I saw no packing boxes.”

At one point, Cortines got up and said, “I could leave right now.”

Cortines took over 13 months ago after John Deasy left following a series of problems. Cortines said, “People say look at what you’ve done in a year with this school district. I haven’t done a damn thing. Let me tell you I’ve worked with many of the people in this audience, I’ve worked with the unions, the labor partners, and I believe that classified people are not second rate but that they are important in keeping our schools going.”

He was asked if he gave away too much to the unions in a new contract at a time the district is facing budget problems again.

“No, I needed to get peace and calm in this district so we could focus on teaching and learning because we were not focusing on it before,” he said. “We were focusing on wearing our red (UTLA) shirts all the time, rather than boys and girls understanding that this is a teacher that cares about me and that can help me learn and engage.”

He did credit the unions with helping him. “Who fixed the district the last time it was in trouble? I did. When I say ‘I did’, I don’t mean I did it alone. The district unions trusted me, they did not like me, but trusted me, and each of them gave me seven furlough days. It wasn’t the district or board or superintendent that kept us from going bankrupt, it was the employees of this district.”

As for the board, which serves as his boss, he said he has not had a problem as other superintendents have. But, he said, “They are not my buddies, I don’t drink beer with them. I have a relationship with every board member.”

He said he is unhappy with the evaluation of teachers, and pointed out that he can walk onto any campus and ask a third or fourth grader what they think of their principal. “When they roll their eyes, you don’t need to go any further, it sure is better than 12 pages of written evaluation,” he said.

He said parents need choices with charter, pilot and magnet schools, but there should be more coordination. He pointed out that he has data showing that 97 students left charter schools to go back to pilot schools this year, but he didn’t want to “wave the sign” and note any trend.

“Schools are struggling,” he said. “We need to get on a plan to work together.”

He pointed out that the district may have been duped by “hucksters,” and that he has been disappointed with the professional development programs offered to teachers this year.

With the problems involving the MiSiS computer system and iPads, he said, “We are all responsible.” He noted that when he left the second time he ran the school district, he was concerned that the data systems were not talking to each other. “They never had a plan to back it up,” he insisted.

He also said, “Teachers and administrators said we are not ready for roll out and we did it anyway.”

Although the technology issues are back on track, and he recently appointed Frances Gipson (who was in the audience) to head the issues, he said, “We were very naïve at that time.”

As for the selection of his successor, Cortines said he is not involved and does not know any of the candidates. Lopez wondered if anyone applying for the job should have his head examined.

“That’s not true,” Cortines objected. “This district needs a manager, a chief executive of a $12 billion business.” He said he reads the business pages every day about companies of a similar size, and said, “We could have been another VW meltdown.”

He did say that his experience as a teacher and principal helped him, but said his successor didn’t have to have a teaching credential. “Everyone in this room is an educator,” he said.

The revision of No Child Left Behind law, signed into law this morning by President Obama, creates a pause for LA Unified, and Cortines said, “I think this school district does not do well with a pause; it needs someone monitoring and watching it and working with people to improve it.”

During a Q-and-A period with the audience, a special education assistant from the San Fernando Valley asked for help because they have no income over the summer months. The answer caused some grumbles.

“I’m going to say something, and it’s not going to be popular,” Cortines said. “This district has moved too far to be the social agency of this city, rather than the educational institution of this city, and it needs to move more towards education. This district cannot be responsible for all the social issues and ills of this city, I’m just sorry.”

Cortines has not said when he’s leaving, but he is slowly saying good-bye.

“No, we are not the greatest,” he said in summary. “We are a struggling school system; schools are struggling in America because families are struggling in America.”

* Adds comment from the Broad Foundation

“We’re on target,” he said. “It would not be a mischaracterization to see we’re on schedule.”

The board’s goal is to find a successor to Ramon Cortines by the end of the year. Cortines, 83, is stepping down after his third run as district leader. While his final day has not been made public, several senior district officials say they do not believe he will be at his desk after this week. The academic year continues through next week before schools close for a three-week winter break.

While Zimmer would not comment on a precise timetable for finalizing the search process, given the holiday schedule, it’s likely that a new superintendent would not be announced before early January.

It’s also reasonable to assume that the winning candidate would need a transition period before starting work in LA Unified, which could put off the official start of the next regime until February or early March.

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The bill now awaiting the signature of President Obama cuts back on federal oversight of education and shifts much of the power to the states, which will be crafting their own accountability systems that will go into effect for the 2017-18 school years.

LA Unified, along with five other districts part of the California Office of Reform Education (CORE), has been receiving federal waivers from the provisions of NCLB after demonstrating its accountability system was more robust that what NCLB called for.

“We are pleased with the overall balance in the bill regarding accountability and school improvement,” Cortines said in a statement. “As a leader in the CORE districts, which received a federal waiver from many of the unworkable NCLB requirements, we look forward to working with the California Department of Education in designing the state’s new school accountability system. We are hopeful that we will be able to continue implementing the many positive reforms included in our waiver. LAUSD is committed to its work to close the achievement gap, boost overall student achievement and increase high school graduation rates.”

Zimmer said he hopes the new direction will also come with new funds.

“With the passage of this bill, we implore Congress to increase funding in the Fiscal Year 2016 education appropriations bill for critical ESEA programs, including Title I, in order to assist states and school districts in implementing the reauthorized ESEA,” Zimmer said in a statement. “Increasing the federal share of funding for students with disabilities is also of utmost importance to us.”

State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson has already offered his praise of the bill when the House passed it on Dec. 2.

“This legislation ushers in a new era in education. I”m pleased that it follows the lead of California in so many important areas, including enhancing local control and providing more flexibility to the states to set up accountability systems that look at multiple measures of success rather than placing so much emphasis on one test,” Torlakson said in a statement. “California is currently in the process of doing just that. I am also glad the legislation encourages states to reduce unnecessary and wasteful testing just as California has done over the years.”

U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer (D-CA), the chair of the Senate Afterschool Caucus, also praised the bill and the money it dedicates to after-school programs.

“This legislation preserves a dedicated funding stream for afterschool programs so that more than 1 million children will continue to have a safe, enriching place to go when the school day ends,” Boxer said in a statement. “The bill also helps states support high-quality afterschool programs, encourages parental engagement and ensures that afterschool activities complement the academic curriculum.”

The LA Unified school board continued its search for a new superintendent early this morning, moving into another closed session after a one minute open meeting that might have been the shortest in district history.

Joining the seven board members in the private session were Hank Gmitro and Darline Robles of the search firm Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates.

With another meeting devoted to the search scheduled for Dec. 13, it seemed more apparent than not that the process might stretch into January. The board has been hoping to hire a replace for Ramon Cortines by the end of the year to accommodate’s his desire to step down by then.

In any case, one senior district official discounted the notion that the search could conclude during the winter break that starts after Dec. 18, saying, “Oh, no way, I doubt it.”

The search process, as outlined by Gmitro, includes a committee of the school board to visit the home districts that the top three candidates before making a final decision.

This past Sunday, the board began the interview phase on the 63rd floor of the U.S. Bank Tower downtown where they met with a handful of candidates who had been among nearly 100 who have applied for the job.

The board’s desire is to keep secret their identities to allow for a larger group of applicants, which president Steve Zimmer says is critical to the selection process.

The board’s focus on finding the new superintendent has grown so sharp that it has pushed other issues to the side.

Three agenda items included on the original schedule to today’s open meeting were postponed to the January meeting. One of them was Scott Schmerelson‘s resolution aimed at putting the board on record as opposing any “external” effort to create charter schools at the expense of the district, a measure aimed at Greater Schools Now and its charter expansion plan.

“I have decided to postpone the consideration of this resolution until January because of the importance of the Superintendent Search, which is the most important responsibility of the Board of Education,” Schmerelson said in a statement released by the district. “I am concerned that consideration of the resolution will distract our attention from this essential process.”

Meanwhile, about 50 people had lined up outside district headquarters this morning to show support for charter school renewals and seven new charter schools that are seeking board approval later in the day.

* Adds postponement of three agenda items.

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In a statement, Cortines emphasized, “Every building and school within this District has a safety plan in place.”

Zimmer pointed out that extra support staff and counselors are available for students or staff who are “struggling to cope with the events in San Bernardino.”

Both school leaders said they were saddened by events at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, which left 14 dead and 21 injured.

Cortines said, “I want to remind principals, teachers, custodians, cafeteria workers, bus drivers and all employees that if you see something, say something. I also want to assure all parents, students and staff that safety is the top priority of L.A. Unified. There is no threat at our schools at this time. Every building and school within this District has a safety plan in place.”

To assure families in this particularly edgy time, coming on the three-year anniversary of the Sandy Hook shootings that left 26 children and teachers dead, and the more recent mass shootings in Paris and Colorado Springs, Cortines said, “On a daily basis, the Los Angeles School Police Department deploys more than 200 police officers. In addition, public safety and mental health agencies work to ensure there are planning, preparation, response and mitigation for incidents that may affect safety.”

In a separate statement, Zimmer said, “This tragedy hits the education community particularly hard. Regional Centers throughout California are places of hope, help and promise for countless families who have loved ones with special needs. In L.A. Unified, our regional centers are essential partners in fulfilling public education dreams. We will not let today’s violence overtake our hope, nor will we let it overcome our dreams.”

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