“We have a crisis with our youngsters,” board member Richard Vladovic told the district’s chief academic officer.

LA Unified’s chief academic officer came before board members Tuesday with an upbeat-titled report called “Breaking Our Own Records,” but instead of resting on the improvement in overall test scores, the four school board members in attendance grilled her for nearly two hours throwing out terms like “frustrating,” “depressing” and “disappointing” and saying the district is in “crisis” when educating certain segments of the student population.

“I had to say this because it depressed me as an educator and after eight years I was told it was going to get better, and I’ve been assured it will get better,” said board member Richard Vladovic, chairman of the Curriculum, Instruction and Educational Equity Committee that met Tuesday. “I’m most concerned about those children not getting what they deserve, and that is quality education.”

Math scores highlighting groups that need attention.

Board member George McKenna said, “I’m as frustrated as I can possibly be. The data is miserable. Test scores are still almost embarrassingly low. It is continually depressing and disappointing.”

The committee was discussing the list of lowest performing schools and other test score numbers that the district was touting as “breaking our records!”

Chief Academic Officer Frances Gipson pointed out that the district’s record 75 percent graduation rate is up from 72 percent last year, and she showed other upward trends in the Smarter Balanced Assessments. She also noted that 265 schools are now participating in the Early Language and Literacy Plan, up from 85 in the 2015-16 school year.

“Some of the scores are record-breaking, but we have not hit the finish line yet,” Gipson said. “Our goal for graduation is 100 percent.”

Gipson tried to paint a positive spin repeating district catchphrases including “A District on the Move” and “All Hands on Deck” used by Superintendent Michelle King. But the four of seven board members on the committee were having none of it. Other members of the committee included representatives of three unions and USC and UCLA.

She pointed again to the increase in students meeting or exceeding English Language Arts standards, to 39 percent, up from 33 percent last year. Math scores rose to 29 percent from 25 percent in 2014-2015.

But then came the board members’ harsh reaction to zero improvement for English learners’ math scores: only 5 percent met standards, and only 4 percent met English standards, up one point. There was no improvement for students with disabilities: 6 percent met math standards two years in a row, and 8 percent met English standards.

Frances Gipson

Gipson said some successes were made through personalization of graduation goals and a dozen different types of interventions. “We are assessing what worked best for students and are accelerating that while eliminating things that did not work best.”

Another new number showed that 42 percent of students received a C grade or better in each of the 15 required A through G courses. Even though students can graduate by getting a D in those classes, Gipson said they want to strive for a C grade or better. California’s public universities require a C or better in those classes.

State math score rankings for the largest school districts in California.

School board President Steve Zimmer said, “I want to ask staff what specific crisis we are addressing? What do we need to see in due time? We need to reflect the urgency to see some positive results in continuing areas of inequity and our failure for public education.”

Zimmer said the board needs to hear “some type of strategy plan and urgency and honest feedback of what we need to do.”

Gipson had staff members from Beyond the Bell, Counseling Services and the Charter Schools Division ready to explain other recent successes in various departments but cut some of the presentations short as the board members asked her questions for nearly two hours.

“This group does represent a sense of urgency,” Gipson responded. “We have taken some bold steps.”

Gipson said she plans to report back with how some of those bold plans are working at school sites.

“We have a crisis with our youngsters and our youngsters need the very best, and if we are paying someone 15 percent more why aren’t they concentrated in schools that need it the most?” asked Vladovic. “There needs to be a concentrated plan. We are in the process of being confronted with a budget crisis that we have never confronted before, and people don’t know that.”

George McKenna and Scott Schmerelson.

Vladovic was particularly concerned with Long Term English Speakers who have scored persistently at 23 percent and never higher. “I feel like we have written them off,” he said.

Board member Scott Schmerelson echoed that, saying, “I’m not concerned about the cracks in the system, but the craters.” He also referred to students continuing from fifth to sixth grades or eighth grade to high school without the appropriate skill sets.

McKenna pointed out that some schools celebrate successes while African-Americans and poor children are still failing. “Is it that these poor children have gangs, or don’t have a momma or a daddy, or there’s no literacy at home? I got all that! So, what are the extreme measures that we should do?”

McKenna pointed to math scores, for example, that showed 18 percent of African-Americans and 23 percent of Latinos exceeding standards while Asians hit 70 percent, Filipinos hit 56 percent and whites were at 57 percent. Economically disadvantaged students scored 23 percent compared to 50 percent for non-economically disadvantaged.

McKenna, the only African-American on the school board, added, “Girls do better than boys and African-American males are at the bottom of the ladder. Am I surprising anyone? Absolutely not! What else can we do? Do we tell them to sing and dance and play baseball?”

McKenna said the district must focus on middle schools because only then “graduation becomes an aspiration rather than an illusion.”

Gipson pointed to working with the community colleges, using block schedules, holding twilight classes, getting grants and creating a director of innovation to review what is working in education. She also said a new dashboard computer program allows teachers to quickly figure out what each student needs to improve on the most.

Gipson said her team “ended some curriculum chaos” by pulling together many different teams and figuring out how to support each other. The district tripled their work in English language development. Gipson said the district saw a large drop in reclassification percentages because of changes in state accountability, and, because the year is from October to October, she said she expects some better numbers in a few weeks.

Zimmer said, “I think we are on the right path, but I want to caution that if we want to eradicate the school readiness gap we have to see the literacy foundation results” and see how early learning initiatives are directly linked to early elementary and math initiatives.

“We need to align the resources with the neediest students,” Gipson said.

One of the committee members, Mojgan Moazzez, principal of Logan Street Elementary School and representing AALA, the principal’s union, praised Gipson and said, “I have personally seen how she works with schools and has allocated resources where it is needed.”

The school board members wanted to see a more precise plan of action to help the lowest-performing students.

“And if we believe in the plan, why not have the plan anchor our approach?” Zimmer asked.

Vladovic added, “We need to see a plan rather than wishes of what we want to do. We need to shore up those youngsters and need a timeline and expected outcomes and what will happen if they are not achieved. We have to make a change.”

“We are doing it now,” Gipson said.

Vladovic continued, “We want to see some real particulars in what you’re doing. I truly believe all kids can learn. It’s our fault, … not theirs. I’m hoping you’ll do it. Let’s not just wait.”

After the meeting, Gipson was asked if the board seemed particularly harsh.

She answered, “We all want better. We have done better. We have a way to go.”

LA Unified School Board members Scott Schmerelson and George McKenna join City Council members in calling for increased funding for after-school programs. (credit: CA3)

Members of the LA Unified School Board and the Los Angeles City Council joined last week with after-school program supporters, families and students to call for an increase in state funds.

About 75 people gathered Friday outside L.A. City Hall in support of a resolution authored by City Council member David Ryu, chair of the city’s Education Committee, urging Gov. Jerry Brown and the California State Legislature to increase funding for After School Education and Safety (ASES) programs in LA and across the state.

The resolution passed with all City Council members voting in support to increase school funding. In attendance were board members Scott Schmerelson, George McKenna and Monica Ratliff and council members Ryu, Bob Blumenfield and Nury Martinez.

The effort was led by the California After School Advocacy Alliance (CA3), a group of organizations that work to enhance accessibility to quality after-school programs. The alliance stated that if no action is taken by the state Legislature this year, nearly half a million low-income youth in California – 110,000 in LA Unified – would be affected, and as early as next year 50,000 could lose access to the programs. As a result, California could see more dropouts, higher crime and at-risk students being left behind, it stated.

In addition to supporting Ryu’s resolution, the CA3 recently sponsored a bill, AB 2663, that would help increase state funding to offset the costs of minimum wage increases and provide ASES programs with a statutory cost-of-living adjustment similar to other state programs.

According to a Los Angeles Times report, that would raise the daily per-student funding rate from $7.50 to $8.50, creating a $73.26-million increase for the 2016-17 school year and providing LA Unified about $10 million more for after-school programs.

LA Unified school board President Steve Zimmer

*UPDATED

A number of charter school operators across LA Unified say the district and its school board are turning up the heat on them to an unbearable degree while using the Charter Schools Division and Office of Inspector General to make approval and renewals of charter schools increasingly difficult.

They claim there has been an increase in the number of investigations by the Inspector General’s office and more denials of charters by the board though increased scrutiny by the district’s Charter Schools Division.

The board has already denied more charter applications in the last six months than it had in the previous two years combined, and it is likely to issue at least three more denials at today’s board meeting. Three other applications were withdrawn last week by Magnolia Public Schools after the Charter Schools Division was set to recommend denial.

The board rarely goes against staff recommendations on charters and has only done so one time in the last year.

“It’s starting to feel like a witch hunt as opposed to effective oversight and accountability,” said Magnolia Public Schools CEO and Superintendent Caprice Young, who served as LAUSD board president from 2001-2003. “I definitely believe some of the board members confuse increased bureaucracy with effective oversight.”

Previous to Young taking over Magnolia a little over a year ago, LA Unified attempted to shut down two of its campuses over fiscal mismanagement. But then a state audit issued in May said the district acted too hastily in trying to shut the schools down.

Young said Magnolia has been the focus of a series of investigations by the Inspector General’s office and it is beginning to feel like a never-ending investigation. Just as she thought the investigations of Magnolia were over and relations with the district were returning to normal, she discovered Magnolia was the subject of a new investigation when the Inspector General’s office asked for financial records dating back to 2002, something it had already fully investigated in the past.

“The Inspector General should not be allowed to investigate charters indefinitely,” Young said. “These investigations put an unnecessary cloud over charters, which I believe is intentional. The investigations are taking place in search of problems instead of in response to evidence of problems.”

Young said the investigation was launched in August days after a Broad Foundation plan to finance a major expansion of charter schools in the district was leaked.

A nonprofit to execute the plan, Great Public Schools Now (GPS Now), was formed later and has since said the plan is being retooled to finance charters, magnets and other district schools. Still, the plan has been denounced by the school board in a December resolution because of the perceived threat it sees to the district’s enrollment and finances. Several board members have delivered scathing public comments attacking the plan, with board President Steve Zimmer saying the backers of the plan want to “bring down” the district.

In an open letter to LAUSD that was sent to LA School Report by the California Charter Schools Association (CCSA), 23 charter operators said they see a connection between the opposition to the plan and the increased scrutiny of charter schools.

The Inspector General’s office looks at improper and illegal activities taking place within the district and tries to detect fraud, waste or abuse. The office — which reports directly to the board — can be requested by any board member to open an investigation and has the power to issue subpoenas.

Much of the Inspector General office’s work is done in secret without public discussion, and confirming the claims by charter operators that the office has increased investigations is difficult. While any financial audits of charters are publicly released and published on the district’s website, investigations are not generally publicly released, and the office will not confirm or discuss any ongoing investigation.

There is some evidence that the office may have increased its number of investigations. The Inspector General, Ken Bramlett, went before the board’s Budget, Facilities and Audit Committee last month and requested an additional $570,000 for audits and investigations.

He said, “Charter-related work consumes the most amount of investigative resources due to the time-sensitive nature of the work and the monthly deadlines for board action on charter petitions.” He added, “What really worries me is the more charter schools that we authorize or the more charter schools that are planned, that’s that much more we are going to be asked to do with no additional resources.”

This year alone, there are five ongoing large-scale charter school investigations, Bramlett told the LA School Report in an email, although it is unknown if that is an increase from years past. When asked if there is any public record of who asked for an investigation, or if the number of investigations has increased, he said that information was confidential per the state education code.

The Charter Schools Division, which reports to the superintendent and issues recommendations to the board on the approval or denial of charter applications and renewals, can also request that the Inspector General open an investigation. Members of the public and other LAUSD divisions can also request an investigation through a hotline.

Cole-Gutierrez, who has been leading the division for eight years, insisted his office has not increased its scrutiny of charters or felt pressure to issue more recommendations for denials.

“Are we receiving indirect or direct pressure to deny charter schools? No,” Cole-Gutierrez said. “Our role is to be faithful to the process on the merits and give our best recommendation regardless of whatever else there may be in terms of perceptions, politics, etc., and I am proud of our team and our record to do so.”

When asked if his office had requested more investigations be launched by the Inspector General’s office, he said, “There are very few open investigations at the moment. I just think the facts don’t support that there are an increasing number.”

Young and other charter leaders said they see it differently and tell stories of being drowned in red tape. Several charter executives said they see a connection between the opposition to the GPS Now plan and increased scrutiny of charters that have been operating for years.

Parker Hudnut, a former LA Unified administrator who is now chief executive of ICEF Public Schools, a group of eight charters in LA Unified and two more in Inglewood Unified School District, put it this way:

“There’s absolutely a chilling effect going on, but I’m not smart enough to know what’s causing it. There has been a recent escalation, and the Broad plan may have a lot to do with that. But there’s what I call a dehumanization in the relationship between charters and LA Unified. It’s become a compliance culture; that’s the only thing we communicate about. There’s no space to talk about what we’re supposed to be talking about, and that’s helping kids.”

Cristina de Jesus, president and chief executive officer of Green Dot Public Schools California, which operates over a dozen schools in LAUSD, also said the scrutiny has increased. Green Dot has had eight charter renewals successfully go before the school board in the last year and had a new charter application approved in January. But de Jesus said it was no easy task.

“One of the frustrations I know that we have experienced and other folks have shared — and it could be the nature of the beast — but the target also seems to change,” she said. “What might be looked at one year might not be looked at the next year but something else is going to be, so it feels like you can’t get your bearings because the target is always changing.”

Young said the way charters are treated and analyzed is uneven compared to the scrutiny district schools receive.

“Back when I was on the board, we were approving charters with 50 pages of details and today the vast majority of those schools are thriving and are doing some cutting-edge work,” Young said. “Now, [charter applications] are 500 pages and most of that is boilerplate required by the school district, which makes the application process stifling. For the district to review a pilot school and approve it, they limit the submission to only 30 pages. With charters, the boilerplate alone is 10 times that.”

None of the seven school board members responded to a request by LA School Report to be interviewed for this story. Board member Ref Rodriguez, who took his seat on the board in July, sent a statement: “I have publicly advocated for more clear and transparent guidelines for how the superintendent makes a recommendation to the board regarding new petitions and renewals of charter schools.”

He added, “At the past six board meetings, I have had some outstanding questions regarding the grounds on which the district has based some of its recommendations. I acknowledge that quality oversight is complex and can be difficult; however, it is LAUSD’s duty, as the largest authorizer in the state, to ensure that all schools receive a fair, transparent, consistent and rigorous accountability process.”

Jed Wallace, the executive director of CCSA, said he also sees a pattern of anti-charter behavior by the board.

“Bottom line, this is a total witch hunt and charters are being harassed,” said Wallace, a former teacher in South-Central LA and administrator in San Diego before becoming chief operating officer of High Tech High, which grew from one school serving 400 students into eight schools serving more than 3,000 students during his tenure.

“This is not good authorizing and no other district in the state uses an [Inspector General]-like approach, an entity which was originally established to monitor LAUSD’s own bond efforts. LA’s charter sector is the best performing in the country and growing to meet the needs of students and their families. LAUSD has to do its part and improve its oversight to match that excellence.”

*Updated to reflect the letter was authored by 23 charter operators, not CCSA, and to include responses from Bramlett

Maria Daisy Ortiz complains about parent involvement with LAUSD.

Parents representing some of the most important advisory committees to the LA Unified school board lodged a litany of complaints this week about a lack of connection with the district.

Long distances to meetings, inconvenient times, police intimidation near meeting sites and a lack of consideration of the parents’ advice were some of the complaints brought up in more than an hour of public comment at the Early Childhood and Parent Engagement Committee Tuesday. The parents said they often felt their advisory committees were held merely to comply with some legislative requirement and that the ideas they advised went nowhere, adding to the difficulty of getting parents to volunteer for the committees.

The three school board members listening to the complaints seemed surprised and dismayed and said the parents’ issues would be addressed. The parents had been invited to Tuesday’s meeting by committee chair Ref Rodriguez, who had asked to hear their concerns.

Some of the dozen speakers were community leaders and officers of major advisory committees to the school board. The Parent Advisory Committee, for example, has 47 parents who meet monthly downtown and come from all over the district, said Chairwoman Rachel Greene.

Rachel Greene, chairwoman of the Parent Advisory Committee

“We have people coming from Porter Ranch and San Pedro so it is difficult for some to get to the Central Area.  But there are there are pros and cons for meeting centrally there are certain record-keeping requirements for [the Parent, Community and Social Services] to comply with that can be accomplished more easily there.  And they do provide food and beverage for members there.  If they start moving to Porter Ranch, the people from San Pedro will have something to say about it, and vice versa. But having some moving around is something to consider.  Having a joint meeting with some of the other committees so we could hear others’ input could be good but could also be a burden. But as Mr. Mangandi mentioned, the lack of childcare is a problem.”

She said the parents who attend the meetings “were usually at some point stymied by LAUSD, or something went wrong with the district or their school down the street or the one that our children take hours to ride buses to get to. We want to work with you, I don’t think there is any other group of human beings who want to see this district succeed as much as we do.”

Some LAUSD staff members said they were looking into improvements of districtwide parent meetings and looking for alternatives, but the parent leaders said it is not enough.

“Many parents are not in agreement that parent participation is improving,” said Diana Guillen, the secretary of the District English Learner Advisory Committee and a member of the Parent Advisory Committee for four years. She pointed to the audience behind her and said, “You can see behind me there are less than 10 parents here.”

Guillen echoed complaints that the meeting locations are held at inconvenient times, inconvenient places and provide no childcare.

“I can’t afford childcare, I have to bring my child,” Guillen said. “We deserve to be humanized. I consider this a personal insult.”

LA Unified has $4.6 million budgeted for parent participation. At one point, some of that money was used to reimburse people who paid for childcare, but that was stopped when the budget crisis hit in 2008, said Rowena LaGrosa, chief executive officer of Parent, Community and Student Services for LAUSD. No childcare was ever provided on site for children younger than 5, and liability issues and lack of space also ended providing childcare for people attending the parent meetings.

“We as parents would like to have more power and not just push the agenda of administrators, we would like to implement our own agendas,” Guillen said.

DELAC chairman Juan Jose Mangandi

The chairman of DELAC, Juan Jose Mangandi, testified through an interpreter that he and other parents felt they were treated by administrators at LAUSD in a “quasi-servitude manner, not as partners in the education of children.” He said, “What I’ve seen in a majority of locations where Title 1 (low income) and E-L (English learner) families are a majority, there is a lack of participation by parents. They don’t trust the system and don’t trust the district.”

Mangandi said he has seen police officers intimidate parents who are at meeting sites and has heard complaints that families can’t afford gas or childcare so they don’t attend the meetings.

“How can we fund these obligations?” Mangandi said. “The intent I have now is to work within the structure despite the difficulties that continue to mount. It seems like only those with money can afford an education. I’m here with a noble cause and as a dreamer.”

The three school board members reacted with concern. Scott Schmerelson, a former principal, noted, “There are many principals out there who care about our bilingual counsel, and they will have meeting times convenient for parents, in the mornings, evenings, even on Saturdays. Have faith, there are those who support you.”

Rodriguez, who chairs the monthly Early Childhood and Parent Engagement Committee where the complaints were made, said, “It sounds like we don’t want certain parents involved, we have to have a way to explore this.” He asked that staff give an accounting of how the district money is spent for their next meeting, and what the concerns are about providing childcare.

School board member Mónica Ratliff noted that “it is a burden for people in my area in the San Fernando Valley to make it to these meetings, and we have to think about solutions. My office got more versed at using devices so they won’t have to travel to the meetings, and that is one option to look into. We keep acting like these problems are insurmountable, and I don’t think that is true.”

Kathy Kantner, chairwoman of the Community Advisory Committee for Special Education

Kathy Kantner, chairwoman of the Community Advisory Committee for Special Education, said that her group has trouble keeping a quorum so they can do business.

“In the past people quit because they felt the district was just going through a check list of compliance,” said Kantner, whose committee is made up of 33 teachers and parents from independent, charter and private schools focusing on special needs. “Parents feel a sense of urgency that is not reflected by the district. Our committees exist to give advice, and we hope that sometimes you will take it.”

Mother of an English Learner student, Maria Daisy Ortiz, said through an interpreter that she has seen many limitations to parent participation. She said meetings should be held at one of the six Local District offices throughout the district and suggested that staff be more forthright about providing information and statistics to the advisory committees.

Karina Lopez Zuñiga said she has felt “less wanted” at district meetings and said it is difficult to find out information about meetings. She said, “If parents knew that they could have come down to talk about parent engagement today, there would be a line out the door. Parents want to participate and want to be involved.”

Vania Valencia, who has a son in the Roosevelt High School magnet program, said if the district doesn’t shape up “then it will ensure privatization of the schools, and this is a public institution.”

Paul Roback, who is the parliamentarian of the Parent Advisory Committee, said that parents at the schools don’t know much about what goes on in these districtwide meetings. “There is zero connection between the school sites and the district level committees, and that is a huge problem.”

Some parents gave suggestions such as staggering the term limits for the committees and making them two-year rather than three-year terms.

Families in Schools, a nonprofit school reform group dealing with parent engagement through a federal grant, has been working with schools since 2000.

“It is important to get parents and communities involved at an early grade level,” said Sandy Mendoza, the advocacy manager of the program.

Rodriguez expressed his concern and said, “The parents you all represent say they want to engage with us. We made some changes and are making some changes, and there is still work to do.”

If members of the LA Unified school board agree on anything, it’s the financial threat posed by declining enrollment. The latest evidence: a 7-0 vote last week to oppose the Great Public Schools Now charter expansion plan.

But what to do about enrollment, which is falling about three percent a year, is another matter, the difficulties of which were revealed hours later when the members debated what to do with the long-closed Highlander campus in the western San Fernando Valley. The choices: approve a proposal from El Camino Charter Alliance to build a charter school to serve 525 students, as district staff was recommending, or spend upwards of $30 million in public funds to build a district school, as board member Scott Schmerelson was promoting.

With looming deficits and limited construction bond funds, Schmerelson’s vocal support for a traditional school sparked a vigorous debate that became a vivid illustration of how competing interests often spur conflicting approaches to problem solving. It also raised questions among the members about how to pay for such a large capital project: Some said they liked the idea as long as it doesn’t drain money from their board district, while others were willing to give up money from their district for the greater good of LA Unified.

After a lengthy discussion, a split board voted 4-3 to give the superintendent’s office a month to explain how a new school would be paid for, including what projects would be cancelled as a result.

The Highlander campus, along with three other closed schools in the western Valley, has been vacant for decades. El Camino’s leaders have been working on plans for three of the closed sites — and to pay for them without any money from LA Unified other than bond money specifically set aside for charter schools. The board in November denied El Camino’s request to develop one of the sites, Oso.

After working with El Camino as the preferred Highlander developer for nearly two years, the sudden push to keep the site as a district campus reflected how much the tone regarding charter schools has changed in a short period of time, largely in the face of the Great Public Schools Now plan to expand charters in the district.

The district has roughly $7.8 billion in available construction bond money but still needs $40 billion to repair or modernize existing campuses, with no active plans to build any new schools. The district has also already earmarked all available bond money for approved projects, LA Unified Chief Facilities Executive Mark Hovatter told the board, explaining that if the board were to move to build the new school it will need cancel other projects.

“Not from District 6, you’re not,” board member Mónica Ratliff said when interrupting him, referring to her own eastern Valley district.

Board member Mónica García threw her support behind building the school — as long as it didn’t drain anything from her District 2 in the East LA area.

“If you tell me this is District 3 money, you got no issue,” she said.

Complicating the issue is that Highlander is located in one of the district’s more affluent areas, while Garcia, Ratliff and other board members represent areas with neighborhoods far more economically challenged.

Board member Richard Vladovic represents Distict 7 in the San Pedro and Watts areas, which has some of the district’s  historically troubled high schools, including Fremont High and Jordan High. Still, Vladovic said if the project is good for LAUSD overall then it has his support.

“I believe in the whole district, and if I have to give up my money to increase enrollment, then I will give it up. The only way we re going to save LAUSD is to increase enrollment,” Vladovic said. “We’ve all agreed if we do not increase attendance, bad things are going to happen. We’re gong to go bankrupt or we’re going to break up the district. I’m convinced of that.”

Later, he added, “I’m just disappointed that everybody keeps saying ‘my district.’ So why don’t we just have seven separate districts and not have a unified district?”

George McKenna of District 1 in South LA and Ref Rodriguez of District 5’s Northeast LA also expressed a willingness to offer bond money earmarked for their districts to help get the new school built.

‘We have a responsibility to assist each other,” McKenna said. “We can’t be, ‘This is my money. Leave my money alone.'”

Even with postponing the measure, specific language in the resolution would not have yet allowed the Highlander campus to be developed by El Camino, as the lease details would need to be negotiated and approved later.

Board president Steve Zimmer stayed out of the larger debate of “local interests versus the greater good” but voted along with Schmerelson and McKenna not to postpone the Highlander vote.

“Just because [El Camino] won an RFP, that’s only step one in a five step process. It’s totally legitimate for us to deny this charter because the world has changed since they won the RFP,” Zimmer told LA School Report. “There isn’t a budget crisis; there’s new leadership at every level. That’s the world they’re entering at this particular point.”

Deborah Wiltz, of the Middle School Principals’ Organization

With middle school principals’ sharing their best practices and dire needs, an LA Unified board committee yesterday set off on a new initiative to improve the academic and social skills of students one principal described as “hormones with arms and legs.”

The discussion in the Curriculum, Instruction and Educational Equity Committee came two days after the LA Unified board unanimously approved what is being called a “landmark resolution” to steer the nearly 200,000 district middle graders onto a path to graduation.

Many of the dozen principals and teachers thanked the committee chairman Scott Schmerelson and the resolution writer, Ref Rodriguez, for a measure that creates a team to be formed by the end of this month. Schmerelson is a former teacher, counselor principal at a middle school; Rodriguez taught at a middle school and co-founded a middle school charter school.

The principals said they are not just facing academic issues but also social issues. Some mentioned “cutters,” students who are secretly cutting themselves, usually on their thighs or arms.

“It is appalling about the incidents of cutting, the act of physical self-mutilation, and principals see it at every level of middle school,” said Sandra Cruz from Patrick Henry Middle School in Granada Hills. “Every middle school needs a school psychologist.”

Deborah Wiltz, president of the Middle School Principals’ Organization, and principal at Byrd Middle School of Sun Valley called for more middle school counselors and smaller class sizes. The principals called for at least one instruction coach for each middle school, including support for English development, and increased tech personnel. They also want more technology to deal with additional testing that is now done on computer devices.

And they expressed a need for help with students who don’t meet the district graduation requirements but are promoted to high school, anyway.

At least two of those working with middle school students broke down in tears when telling stories. One of them was Lori Vollandt, the health coordinator of the district, who referred to many middle graders as “hormones with arms and legs.”

Recognizing the district’s efforts to innovate through grants, she cried when saying, “I really have confidence in LAUSD, and we have to go out there and ask how can we serve you and what should we do?”

Vollandt’s department has a number of educational units that work in middle schools to address such issues as HIV/AIDS, drug and substance abuse, teen pregnancy and nutrition. The district also has programs for safe school plans, gun violence intervention, GBLT youth counseling and safe environments for transgender youth.

Rory Pullens, director of arts education

As for arts, Rory Pullens, the executive Director of Arts Education, told the committee the district has made strong progress in hiring new arts teachers for middle schools so that every middle school now has a full-time arts teacher, and music program.

“There were 20 middle schools that had no art instruction at all, and that has been remedied,” he said. “In 2016 we are expanding arts integration to reach 2,000 non-arts teachers to show how they can integrate arts—theater, dance, media, film—into any subject matter. We have to have out-of-the-box delivery to relate to middle school students.”

The committee meeting was the  starting point for reimagining the middle grades, to continue with the panel led by Rodriguez.

“I know that the middle grades are the most difficult and yet a critical passage for many students,” Schmerelson said. “If we are really serious about 100 percent graduation, we have to make sure that our students are showing up for high school prepared for a successful transition and equipped with the academic skills that they need to succeed.”

The overall effort has won the support of several national organizations dedicated to helping middle grades, including the Association for Middle Level Education and the California League of Middle Schools. “It is a tough age for kids and schools need to be part of the solution rather than part of the problem,” said California League executive director Scott Steel.

The district is starting to consult with their own experts, including several who joined the committee meeting, Randy Romero, principal of Hollenbeck Middle School, and Gustavo Lopez, an 8th grade history and social science teacher in Luther Burbank Middle School.

“It’s the greatest changes in their lives, the most exacerbating developmental years, with puberty,” said Wiltz. “That’s why it so important to share what is going well with teaching.”

Click to enlarge

The LA Unified school board spent more than an hour last night, debating dates for the next three academic calendar years.

Ultimately, the members decided to keep the schedule similar to this year’s — starting in mid-August with three weeks of winter break — but only for one year.

The plan passed on a 5-2 vote, with George McKenna and Richard Vladovic dissenting. The board also agreed to study the matter further before committing additional years to the same schedule.

The debate centered on issues including time enough for college applications, the burden of childcare over a long winter break, the length of summer vacation and how the schedule not only affects student grades, but also their attendance, which translates into money for the district.

In the process, the board generally discounted the district’s efforts to survey more than families by phone, computer and community meetings for their preferences.

“The survey was awful,” said board member Scott Schmerelson. “I don’t think people knew what they were doing.”

Schmerelson said he attended all of the community meetings held by the district to get input for the calendar and concluded that the survey was confusing. The district also conducted a phone survey in September, another two months later and made available an online survey.

The responses showed that a majority of parents and teachers supported mid-to late-August start dates rather than an after-Labor Day start. Most also said they wanted the first semester to end before winter break. New superintendent Michelle King also said student body presidents and school administrators preferred the mid-August start.

For the first time yesterday, a student sat among the board members and cast “advisory” votes on every issue before them.

In his first remarks, Leon Popa, a 16-year-old junior from STEM Academy at Bernstein High, said he talked to fellow students and teachers and concluded, “People would want a longer summer and struggle with three weeks of winter vacation. It would be really tough with underprivileged families taking care of them.”

He pointed out that having a shorter summer impedes plans for summer internships and that “people make plans and have commitments.” He voted to adopt the one-year plan with the schedule suggested by the superintendent’s staff.

In the adopted calendar, the first day of school will be Aug. 16, 2016 with a full week of vacation over Thanksgiving, as it was this year. The first semester ends Friday, Dec. 16 and school resumes on Jan. 9, 2017 after three full weeks of vacation. There is a Spring break from April 10 to 14 and the last day of school is Friday, June 9, 2017.

Three parents spoke against the new schedule, citing family trips and hopes for a longer summer. Debra Moreno Garcia, a parent of two LAUSD students, cited studies saying that a semester split by the winter break doesn’t necessarily mean more failures in tests.

In arguing for a later starting date, Vladovic cited the expenses of air conditioning schools during the summer. In past years, a longer summer schedule resulted in more than $4 million in added expenses. “But of course, these days it gets to 90 degrees in December, so that’s hard to predict,” he said.

McKenna proposed his own schedule that would start school after Labor Day. “We do not need a whole week off during Thanksgiving,” he said, but staff pointed out that absenteeism rises over a shorter Thanksgiving break.

“Obviously, people are passionate about the calendar,” said board member Mónica Ratliff.

Assistant superintendent Earl Perkins said that the staff had recommended the schedule for three years so that families could plan vacations and that the MiSiS computer system could be programmed well in advance.

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“Resolutions like this distract us and are perpetuating harmful myths in the community,” Rachel Hazlehurst, of Camino Nuevo Charter Academy told the board, calling the resolution from board member Scott Schmerelson “divisive in nature.”

Hazlehurst and 14 other speakers were part of an effort to pushback against the motion, which was scheduled for a board vote later in the day. The measure is general in its wording but was precipitated by the recent formulation of Great Public Schools Now, an offshoot of the Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation that wants to expand the number of charter schools in LA Unified.

Schmerelson nodded and listened intently to all the speakers. Before the meeting adjourned for a closed session, board President Steve Zimmer applauded the speakers for expressing their opinions and pointed out that their messages of urging collaboration and best-practices sharing was far more collegial that what he has heard from Great Public Schools Now.

“I hope that there is internal conversation that is happening,” Zimmer said. “The words [in the resolution] were in response to the a proposal that had very different words than the words that were said today.”

Zimmer said he found materials and websites that “perpetuate deficit thinking” about traditional schools and “present a negative picture of the schools they want to collaborate with.”

Zimmer, who has been critical of the Broad initiative but has not weighed-in on Schmerelson’s proposal, said, “We welcome conversation and visiting charter schools, and want the charter community to visit LAUSD schools as well.”

He added he wants to continue “making sure that we have ways of establishing restorative practices and end negative discipline practices at all schools” and welcomes “an honest and open conversation” about the charter school issues.

Emilio Pack, the executive director of the Math and Science College Preparatory school said he has “noticed a lot of speakers [coming to school board meetings] perpetuating some of the myths of charter schools and I feel that some of the language that is part of the Schmerelson resolution perpetuates some of those myths.”

Larry Fondation, director of community engagement for Green Dot, which has 20 schools, said his three children have graduated from LAUSD schools and his wife works at LA Unified headquarters. “We need to stress the commonalities we have, not differences,” Fondation said. “We work closely with many other schools and have large parent engagement and community involvement.”

When she was an LAUSD teacher, Abigail Nunez, now of the Alliance Tennenbaum Family Technology High, said she recalled the myths she heard about charter schools. “The reality is that charter schools are laboratories of innovation.” She said her school routinely shares resources and practices with other LAUSD schools on their shared campus.

After three revisions, a resolution aimed at curtailing future charter school expansion in LA Unified is finally coming before the school board for a vote on Tuesday.

While the measure is largely symbolic in that it cannot change policy regarding charter growth — that is a state matter — it’s a way to open a “difficult conversation that is long overdue,” said its only sponsor, Scott Schmerelson.

General in scope, the resolution is an obvious response to the Broad Foundation-inspired plan, Great Public Schools Now, that is proposing a dramatic increase in the number of LA Unified charters over the next eight years. Schmerelson and other board members have characterized the plan as dangerous to the district’s traditional schools.

“As a retired, life-long LAUSD educator, I believe that I have a moral obligation to raise awareness and understanding of externally driven strategies that support the uncontrolled proliferation of charter schools at the expense of the District’s ability to adequately provide for the needs of all students, especially the most disadvantaged students who rely on public education,” Schmerelson told LA School Report.

As impassioned as the resolution may be, it’s effectively toothless in terms of changing how the district deals with charter applications and renewal requests that come before the board. State law creates the rules for charters, and it only provides for denials in the cases of questionable finances or managerial weakness.

In his review of the resolution, LA Unified’s chief legal counsel, David Holmquist, said as much: “It should be noted that any analysis done by the district on any charter school proposal needs to be in accordance with the provisions of the Education Code.” He added, “The Board should be cautioned against using any fiscal impact to the district and potential decrease in revenues as bases for denying a charter.”

That’s part of the problem, Schmerelson said, pointing to state regulations that restrict how the school board monitors, controls and approves charter schools. “We need to change state law and clarify ambiguous state and district guidelines that hamper our ability to act as responsible charter authorizers and exercise diligent oversight of existing charter schools,” he said.

Anita Landecker, interim executive director of Great Public Schools Now, said the resolution won’t impact the organization’s plan to press ahead.

“We remain focused on our goal of ensuring high quality educational options for children in underserved neighborhoods,” she said in an email to LA School Report. “Our plan will simply provide a roadmap for doing that. Our effort will not be materially impacted by motions like this, as the true work will be done by hard working educators who are simply trying to grow and expand their high quality schools.”

She added, “We look forward to working collaboratively with LAUSD, including the new superintendent, to achieve that goal.”

Schmerelson first introduced his “Excellent Public Education for Every Student” measure in November, and it was rewritten three times. Ultimately, he removed language that specifically asked the board to “oppose” the Broad plan, changing it to say the board “stands opposed to external initiatives that seek to reduce public education in Los Angeles to an educational marketplace and our children to market shares.”

He also re-inserted a request that the superintendent “analyze external proposals targeting LAUSD for their impact in terms of enrollment, fiscal viability and LAUSD’s ability to provide an outstanding public education” — a heady challenge to a new superintendent who could be named as early as next week.

Schmerelson also criticized the district for ignoring the issues posed by the Great Public Schools Now initiative.

“For too long,” he said, “the leadership of LAUSD has failed to acknowledge the collateral damage to the majority of our students when systematic, external agendas are being developed and well financed to weaken, and eventually destroy, LAUSD’s ability to provide a quality education for students who rely on our neighborhood schools and a wide range of district innovative programs and critical services.”

The resolution is up for a vote now after Schmerelson agreed to delay it at the request of board President Steve Zimmer, who has been pressing the board to concentrate on picking a new superintendent. In the meantime, charter advocacy groups declared the Schmerelson resolution unlawful and requested changes resulting in minor rewording such as “unregulated” charter schools to “under-regulated.”

The resolution, as now written, outlines nine points for the district with the goal to improve public education and to keep students in traditional schools. Those points include ensuring equitably-funded arts and music education, helping young students who “endure the disadvantages of poverty” and encouraging parent involvement in student achievement.

The only potential budget impact, according to LAUSD staff, could be the cost of the extra analysis that this resolution will lay on the new superintendent. Also, the budget could be impacted by “any litigation resulting from denying a petition on a basis that is not clearly based in law.”

Schmerelson said the conversation is something he wanted to have with fellow board members since he was elected last year.

“The purpose of my resolution is to begin to address the threat to the district’s ability to effectively serve all students in LAUSD,” he said. “I see my resolution as the beginning of a difficult conversation, that is long overdue, about the future viability of our mission and commitment to all students.”

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*UPDATED

LA Unified is exploring building two new schools in the western San Fernando Valley on the sites of two campuses that have been vacant for decades at a potential cost of tens of millions.

The move comes as the district has no current plans for any new schools and would need to spend an estimated $40 billion to repair and modernize its existing campuses with only $7.8 billion in available construction bond authority.

The idea of building schools on the sites is a complete reversal of plans that had been in place for a year and a half and after district officials had repeatedly said for years there is no money or need for new schools in the area.

El Camino Real Charter School High School, which has been named by the district as the preferred developer of the sites, has plans to raise its own money to develop them into K-8 schools along with using bond funds set aside specifically for charter school development. LA Unified would then lease the land to El Camino long term, for up to 40 years.

The district has been under increased pressure from Valley leaders and residents to do something with the sites, which have been shuttered for decades, leading neighbors to say they have become eyesores that attract vagrants. Previous statements by district officials have estimated it would cost $20 million per site to build a new school.

LA Unified Chief Facilities Executive Mark Hovatter said the buildings are no longer suitable even to be repaired.

“The facilities have not been occupied as schools for an extended period of time,” he told LA School Report. “We believe that the cost to renovate them would exceed the useful value and it would be cost-effective to tear them down and build new, if there were going to be a school built there.”

At the November board meeting, Superintendent Ramon Cortines announced plans to develop one site — Oso — into a magnet school for autistic students that would be connected with nearby Taft High School, and board member Scott Schmerelson said the district is working on a plan for a second site — Highlander — although he provided no details on what kind of school it would be.

Based on the sudden announcements, the board denied El Camino’s charter application for the Oso site and postponed the vote on Highlander. Although El Camino officials had been told of the Oso plan in advance of the meeting, El Camino’s director of marketing, Melanie Horton, said the Highlander announcement came as a complete surprise.

“We put a lot of time and effort into writing the charter and conducting community outreach over the last year, more than a year now, so it’s frustrating to hear that there might be other potential plans for the sties,” Horton said.

Horton said development of a third site, Platt Ranch, would be revisited by El Camino if its Highlander application is denied since Platt was to be a K-12 STEM center without any permanent students on site.

“Obviously if our charter for Highlander is also denied then we wouldn’t have a K-12 operation so we wouldn’t have a need for a K-12 science center. So we would have to revisit that following board action on Highlander,” Horton said.

Schmerelson did not respond to an email asking what the district would do about Platt Ranch if El Camino abandoned its development plans there.

Board member Mónica García, who voted in favor of El Camino’s application for Oso, expressed some skepticism about the need for new Valley schools during the debates about Oso and Highlander at the November meeting.

“We’ve been told for three years there is no money for this project. Isn’t that why we did the (request for proposal)?” she said. “Are we redefining need? Are we just being super creative in how we are determining how we can use those dollars?”

García also joked about not being interested in sending more resources to the Valley, a reference to the fact that she represents some neighborhoods in East LA that are economically challenged while the West Valley is one of the more affluent areas of the district. Her comments are a preview of the opposition the district and board could face if it moves forward to develop the sites.

Now in the final stages of a $25.3 billion bond program that financed 130 new schools since 2003, LA Unified has no active plans to construct any new schools. The final and 131st school as part of that bond project is currently being built, Hovatter said.

The district also has limited resources to pay for any new schools. Of the $7.8 billion in available construction bond authority, Hovatter said the district has already commited $2 billion to $2.5 billion of it.

Hovatter would not speculate on the cost of developing Oso and Highlander.

“There are a lot of things that have to happen now and we are extremely preliminary,” he said. “It is essentially a concept study at this point. No one has made any decisions. There’s not an approved project and there’s not an approved program that’s established. So before that happens we first have to define what the program would be.”

* Updated to include clarification that Horton said El Camino would revisit the Platt plan, not necessarily abandon the idea of developing the site.

Scott Schmerelson has revised his LA Unified board resolution that attacks an outside group’s plan to expand the number of charter schools in the district. A majority of the seven board members has expressed opposition to the plan.

But a shift in mission from the group — Great Public Schools Now, supported by the Broad Foundation and others — combined with the changed language in the resolution, suggests it might be more difficult for him to achieve a 7-0 vote from a board that includes several members supportive of charter schools.

The resolution will be voted on at the Dec. 8 board meeting. It is largely symbolic because state law provides school boards only a limited ability to deny legitimate charter applications.

In the resolution he introduced last month, Schmerelson called for a declaration that the school board “opposes the Broad Foundation plan.” It now says the board “stands opposed to external initiatives that seek to reduce public education to an educational marketplace and our children to market shares while not investing in District-wide programs and strategies that benefit every student.”

But officials of Great Public Schools Now say they have revised their plan to include investing in some traditional district schools, including pilots, magnets and other high-performing schools with large numbers of children receiving free and reduced-price lunch.

While those schools do not represent the entirety of LA Unified, the inclusion of them suggests that Great Public Schools Now is seeking to reduce opposition to the plan by addressing at least one major concern of the board, that the initiative would ignore children in regular district schools. 

Further, leaders of the group say they have dropped any language or reference that frames its mission in terms of “market share.”

Schmerelson says he hasn’t had a change of heart, that the revised resolution still reflects his staunch opposition to the plan. In an email to LA School Report, he said he does not consider his revision “a major shift to the original intent of my resolution,” asserting that he is “unaware of any other initiative at this time that identifies LAUSD students in terms of ‘market share.’”

He pointed to another part of the his revision, a commitment to a long list of strategies aimed at attracting and retaining students by developing “a framework for excellent public schools and improved outcomes for every student.”

The list includes such familiar issues as improving student achievement, helping young children overcome the impact of poverty, funding for the arts, assuring student safety and improving student attendance.

“As a new Board Member, I am trying to better define our responsibility to the future of LAUSD and to all our children who deserve an excellent public education despite per pupil resources that rank among the lowest in the nation,” Schmerelson said in the email, adding, “I remain opposed and incensed by all strategies that are clearly designed to privatize public education at the expense of our neediest children who rely on our neighborhood schools.”

At the very least, passage of the revised resolution would put down a marker down to Greater Public Schools Now, forcing the group to make good on its word to do more for traditional schools if the effort proceeds.

At the same time, the new language, nuanced as it may be, could make it easier for the three board members sympathetic to charters — Ref Rodriguez, Mónica García and Richard Vladovic — to vote against it without drawing condemnation from the teachers union, UTLA, which is perhaps the charter expansion group’s staunchest adversary.

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]]> https://www.laschoolreport.com/for-the-la-unified-board-a-long-day-of-discussions-disputes-and-votes/ Wed, 11 Nov 2015 20:14:13 +0000 http://laschoolreport.com/?p=37393

Steve Zimmer about nine hours into the meeting.

The LA Unified School Board convened at 10 a.m. and didn’t adjourn until more than 12 hours later yesterday, in a series of meetings that ran the gamut from moving forward on finding a new superintendent, to confronting ugly budget realities to diving into the minutiae of charter school applications. For background information, each member had 1,209 pages of supplemental paperwork at the ready.

Yes, it was long and tedious, and bleary-eyed members were begging for adjournment.

They had it better than some members of the public, eager to share their views with the board. Outside district headquarters, Maria Hernandez stepped in line with her 3-year-old at 5:30 a.m., ready to talk about how great her Celerity Rolas Charter School has helped her 7th grade son. She was flanked by Myra Guttierez who has a son and daughter in the school, and Kenja Jackson, who attended the school and is now in college.

They finally got to speak at about 9 p.m. when school board president Steve Zimmer took pity on the families with small children who waited for so long to speak.

“I never thought that higher education would be for someone of my kind coming from south central,” Jackson said. “I was bullied in 6th grade and then it was like family going there in 7th and 8th grade and they inspired me.”

But their school was denied a charter petition, as was Celerity Himalia Charter School, because the LAUSD staff recommended against it.

After presentations on the superintendent and financial issues, the charter discussions seemed endless, even with the two hot topics of the day/night not even discussed. Scott Schmerelson introduced a resolution against the Eli Broad Foundation’s plan to increase charter schools in the district, designed to put the board on record against all initiatives “that present a strategy designed to serve some students and not all students.”

And Mónica Ratliff initiated a measure that would ask for charter school transparency, which is almost identical one that was proposed and defeated last year by ousted school board member Bennett Kayser. It asks for charter schools to comply with state guidelines for open meetings and inform parents about school-related items like traditional school do.

Those two plans will be up for discussion and vote at the next meeting, on Dec. 8.

The board approved five-year renewals of 14 other charter schools, interspersed with hearing from parents, teachers, students and administrators talking about the benefits of the schools. When the board voted (mostly unanimously) for approval, the audience erupted in applause.

Two applications ran into trouble. Zimmer also weighed in on a charter proposal for the Oso Elementary School that was abandoned in 2003. He said, “There are few things I’m more ashamed of than how we left that campus.”

Yet, the school board voted to turn down a plan for El Camino Real K-8 Charter School to bring 525 students there and redevelop the run-down site. Why? The district wants to develop a school for students who are autistic and highly gifted.

Superintendent Ramon Cortines said that he told the El Camino Real petitioner, David Fehte, about the plans for the LAUSD-owned property at a recent meeting. Fehte seemed angry when the petition was voted down, but had another proposal for the abandoned Highlander Campus, which was closed in 1982 and vacant since 2004. Neighbors such as Jackie Keen said they looked forward to the abandoned building becoming a school again.

But, Schmerelson said he met with the local district superintendent who had plans for the campus. Fehte said that was news to him.

When there are waiting lists at high performing schools that are bursting at the seams it does not make sense to use taxpayer’s money to start a new charter school at LAUSD-owned sites, Schmerelson said. “I do not want to waste the petitioner’s time,” he added.

Ratliff asked to delay the petition proposal for the site until next month. Fehte reluctantly agreed.

Charter school advocates not only spoke up in favor of school petitions, but against some of the bond money being spent that should be shared with charter schools.

An attorney representing the California Charter Schools Association, Winston Stromberg, suggested that one of the bond measures to improve sites for students with disabilities was rushed through without stakeholder input. He recommended that the school board postpone action on the reallocation of the bonds.

Zimmer sounded insulted about the lawyer’s statements and said, “Saying that we are not following federal law and that this is unlawful is what I’m challenging profoundly.”

Sarah Angel of CCSA asked the board for a meeting before the vote. “We would ask that you table this at this time and move it to the budget committee to figure out priorities,” she said. “In the spirit of collaboration, the board of education should have a hearing. Charters have applied for this money and have not had traction.” In fact, she said the district facilities administrators told them to come back later with their requests.

Cortines said he wouldn’t approve any new construction in his last few months with the district unless there was a plan. He said he didn’t have any projects from charter schools with specific plans. He said, “I want to be collaborative, but kicking the can down the road is not going to do it.”

Ref Rodriguez recused himself from the discussion of renewal for Partnership to Uplift Communities charter schools, which he co-founded. There was some discussion in denying one petition because of an attorney general’s investigation into a mismanagement issue and conflict of interest.

Schmerelson said, “I don’t want to be the bad guy but need to protect the taxpayers and the PUC organization has to behave itself like every other organization has to.”

Cortines said, “We must be careful not to penalize the students and staff where there is a good education.”

Kenja Jackson speaks for a charter school that got denied.

The board voted unanimously to approve the two renewal requests.

As time wore on, Ratliff suggested the board consider breaking the meetings into two Tuesday nights to reduce the size of the agenda. George McKenna said, “Aren’t we just going to have two long meetings anyway?”

Zimmer seemed frustrated at the length of the meeting, and his accommodations to allow everyone in the audience to speak.

When board executive officer Jefferson Crain asked to extend the meeting yet again, the board sounded a collective groan.

“I have to go home and feed by dog,” said board member Richard Vladovic.

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The plan has drawn rebuke from other board members and the LA teachers union, UTLA, which organized protests on the issue across this city this morning.

But the resolution, which appears largely symbolic, raises one key question: Other than objecting to the charter plan, what can the board really do to stop it?

According to the California Charters School Association (CCSA), a close reading of the state’s 1992 Charter School Act reveals the answer: Not much.

“The act is very clear in the statutes that charter schools should be encouraged and it narrows the grounds on which a school board can deny a charter petition. So it does not give school boards wide discretion,” said Ricardo Soto, general counsel for CCSA.

Board President Steve Zimmer has strongly denounced the Broad plan, previously telling LA School Report it is “not an all-kids plan or an all-kids strategy. It’s very explicitly a some-kids strategy, a strategy that some kids will have a better education at a publicly-funded school that assumes that other kids will be injured by that opportunity.”

But missing from Zimmer’s denunciation — then or since — is a plan to oppose the Broad effort in any practical way, demonstrating how limited even the most motivated school board is when it comes to stopping the proliferation of charter schools. And according to a new report out today by the National Alliance for Public Charter Schools, Los Angeles continues to serve the largest number of charter school students in the country, with a current waiting list of nearly 70,000.

The Charter Schools Act of 1992 lays out clear guidelines upon which a school board can deny a charter school application: Philosophical opposition to charter schools or having concerns about their impact on the district’s finances are not among them. The Schmerelson resolution specifically asks the superintendent to analyze any external proposals for their impacts on the district’s finances and enrollment.

Soto said this wording could turn a largely symbolic resolution into a very practical problem for the board.

“I think (the resolution) is inconsistent with the law and I think they shouldn’t be adopting a resolution that includes a provision that is unlawful,” he said.

Further, board member Mónica Ratliff is introducing her own charter resolution today, calling for a wide range of information that charters must convey to parents to prove that their children’s school is in full compliance with state law. The measure would appear to bolster Schmerelson’s resolution, giving it a wider legal framework from which to act.

The wording of the Schmerelson resolution isn’t the only problem the board could have if it wants to oppose the Broad plan. For one, the Broad plan isn’t really a single plan and does not intend to create a new charter organization that would operate 260 schools, but rather seeks to fund an expansion of many different charter organizations already in operation.

Even if the board were to start denying charter applications, the management company can still seek approval by appealing to county or state boards, meaning they could still open in LA and still drain the district’s enrollment numbers.

Also, if the board were to start shooting down a lot of charter applications in an effort to curb the Broad plan, Soto said it could find itself in legal trouble.

“If they were to pass this (resolution), and then all of a sudden a few months down the line we see denials of charter petitions along the lines of the resolution and not provided by law, or for no apparent reason at all, then a court would probably say the board is potentially violating the law and then you also have this resolution that clearly articulates their position against charter schools,” Soto said.

The Los Angeles Times Editorial Board also found problems with the Schmerelson resolution, writing today that it “could backfire by making any future votes against individual charter school applications appear biased. The board is required by state law to approve all sound applications for charter schools.”

The resolution also calls on the board to oppose “all initiatives that present a strategy designed to serve some students and not all students.” The Times also found this problematic, stating, “Under this definition, though, the board would have to oppose many of its own programs” including magnet schools.

The Times editorial was headlined, “It’s time to stop the whining about charter schools.” While “whining” may be an overstatement, it does appear that swaying public opinion against Broad is a major part of a strategy by Schmerelson, Zimmer and UTLA to remind the public of what they contend are severe consequences of the Broad plan advancing. For now, public opinion across the state shows Californians have a generally favorable opinion of charters.

Scott Schmerelson and Jefferson Crain try out a FOSS kit.

LA Unified 2nd graders will be taking a California comprehensive science test when they reach 5th grade in 2019, and district science coordinators are already gearing up for it, according to a presentation before the school boad’s Curriculum, Instruction and Educational Equity Committee.

But it’s a huge undertaking. District officials leading the effort told the committee that preparing students for the state tests, known as the Next Generation Science Standards, will require 90 teachers and administrators to be trained for a Science Leadership Team, and 1,000 teachers (at least one for every school) to serve as a lead science teacher. It will also require creating a new science center in each of the four Local Districts that don’t have one.

“We all know that science is very important in our world today, and we need to see how we are getting the word out to our schools,” said Scott Schmerelson, the board member who is the chairman of the committee.

The State Board of Education adopted the new science standards in 2013 with plans to revamp the district’s science curriculum. Then, statewide tests for 5th, 8th and 11th graders would start in 2019.

Right now, 23 district schools are piloting the new versions of the Full Option Science Systems (FOSS) program that offers hands-on kits for students to solve problems on their own, said Ayham Dahi, the secondary school level science coordinator. FOSS kits are used in every elementary school now for instruction, but the new ones are the Next Generation Science Standards version. The district hopes to expand the pilot FOSS kits to 100 schools within the next year.

To demonstrate the FOSS kits, elementary science coordinator Lillian Valdez-Rodela placed two bags between committee members for a collaborative task. “This is what we are now doing in the 4th grade,” she said. In one bag, the team had to figure out how to make a bulb light up, and in the other, they had to make a flashlight that turns on and off without using wires. Schmerelson and board executive officer Jefferson Crain solved the challenge first.

“We have gone a long way in science,” said Valdez-Rodela. “We are asking students to apply a scientific concept and solve an engineering problem. This is the shift from learning that we did in 1998 to figuring it out today.”

Principal Norma Spencer from Alexander Science Center

Principal Norma Spencer of Alexander Science Center School near Exposition Park, explained how she motivated her staff and students starting in August. “I was the only one who was excited about science and removed the fear and put together a model that worked,” she said.

She said she allowed students and teachers to develop the science curricula and put them in eight-to 12-week segments. That allowed students to redesign projects that didn’t work and gave parents a chance to observe their children’s work.

She now has six Lead Science Teachers, one for each grade, rather than the one-per-school that the district recommends. “I meet with them once a month and they go back and share with their colleagues,” Spencer said. She said she asks that 20 percent of the time be spent teaching, and 80 percent is for child collaboration and lab time. Once a week, she said she visits classes and talks to the children about what they are learning.

“We give children the sense of empowerment and everyone has to participate so no one gets left behind,” Spencer said. “Most importantly, the children are fearless and not afraid to fail or put ideas out there. If it’s not correct then they have their colleagues help them to make it work.”

The last state science standards were adopted in 1998, and that’s when Karen Jin taught at Fairfax High School. Now an LAUSD science coordinator, Jin said engineering is being incorporated at all grade levels, K through 12.

“There is an urgency to get students ready for this transition,” she said,

Now the district has a science center at two ends of the large district in Granada Hills in the western San Fernando Valley and in San Pedro. Jin said there needs to be one in all six Local Districts. Committee member Juan Ramirez, representing UTLA, said he was concerned about some schools’ getting left out and FOSS kits that need to be restocked. The staff said that they are replenishing all the FOSS kits and restocking them.

Committee member Scott Folsom, representing the PTSA, said, “I wish we would move faster on this, but this is a district that doesn’t do fast very well.”

And committee chairman Schmerelson said it would be important to figure out how the a lead science teacher would be chosen. “It will have to be someone who is exemplary in science and well-versed,” he said. “You can’t just have anyone fill that spot.”

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Steve Zimmer visits Vine Street Elementary’s new parent center

Now LA Unified is trying to make it fun for parents to go to school, too.

In a report by Ruth Yoon, the district’s administrator of Parent, Community and Student Services, she said 75 parent centers at schools will be renovated and updated by the end of December. Another 35 parent centers will be renovated by spring, with at least 100 more if staff approves. Those renovations will take place thanks to $20 million approved by the school board in 2011 to improve parent and family centers.

“We are providing a welcoming environment for families and inviting them to participate as equal partners in the education of their children,” said Yoon who presented her update to the Early Childhood Education and Parent Engagement Committee this week.

Some of the parent centers have new computers, some have staff people training parents, and some teach parents how to use computers and use educational websites. Applications for new renovations of parents centers ended last week, Yoon said, but schools will be able to apply for grants to update their centers next year.

Board member Scott Schmerelson, a former principal, said, “Parent Centers should not be hidden, and administrators should show true interest in the parent center.”

Schmerelson said the one at his school was not renovated, and that some are plagued with broken furniture or computers that don’t work.

Mónica Ratliff said she worried about schools that are slow to get in line first for these kinds of renovations. “Congratulations for those who are good at jumping through the hoops, but I am concerned about what happens in schools that are not good at it, and don’t get what they need.”

Yoon said that North Hollywood High School is an example of the many schools that have seen a great increase in parent involvement since the parent center was improved.

Some of the parent centers serve as a training ground for parents, with workshops that provide tips on helping with homework, understanding school budgets and teaching children discipline.

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Two of the new school board members will chair their first committee meetings of the new school year.

The Curriculum, Instruction and Educational Equity Committee meets at 10 a.m. and will be run by new chairman Scott Schmerelson. The members will get a report from Cynthia Lim, executive director of the Office of Data and Accountability, analyzing the Smarter Balanced Assessment Scores. Lim’s report explains how the new test scores cannot fairly be compared to past scores and how LAUSD students in both charter and traditional schools fell below the state averages in meeting standards. However, in both math and English tests magnet schools at LAUSD scored better than the state average in all grades.

The Curriculum Committee also will receive a report about the district’s College and Career Readiness Plan presented by Linda Del Cueto, the chief of Professional Learning and Leadership Development.

At 2 p.m., new school board member Ref Rodriguez is scheduled to lead the Early Childhood Education and Parent Engagement Committee. Dean Tagawa, the administrator of LAUSD’s Early Childhood Education Division, is on the agenda to review the expansion of Traditional Kindergarten in the district.

Then, Jamila Loud of The Advancement Project will discuss “Access Gaps to High Quality Early Care and Education in LAUSD.”

At the 4 p.m. board meeting, the board will hear concerns about textbooks, as required by law: By the eighth week of school, school boards must ensure that all students have textbooks aligned with state standards in academic classes.

The district superintendent’s office said the district spent $67 million to get Common Core textbooks last year, and another $120.8 million is set for this year and next year. The district has asked every teacher and principal to certify that enough textbooks are available, and each Local District superintendent has to resolve any issues.

To offset some of the discussion that may arise from parents, deputy superintendent Ruth Pérez issued a memo dated Sept. 9 explaining that regulations do not include courses for art, computer programming or agriculture, just core and required subjects. Also, it does not require a set of textbooks to be kept in the classroom if ones are individually assigned to each student.

All three meetings are open to the public, a 333 South Beaudry Ave. The district is also providing live video and audio streaming.

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The role of charters has been a long-running battle among board members, and now it’s sure to intensify with so many more in the planning stage. Issues involving charters, such as applications for new ones, renewals for existing ones and operational transparency, are part of almost every monthly board meeting, and even before the first meeting of the new year, opinions remain divided, based on interviews with LA School Report and other media outlets.

The foundations revealed their expansion plans several weeks ago but provided few details. One unnamed source told the LA Times that the goal was to enroll as many as half of LA Unified’s students in charter schools within eight years.

One of the two new members, Ref Rodriguez, a charter school founder, said, “I believe we need to offer every family a high quality option in public education, and that can be a LAUSD school or a charter school. I also believe that we need leaders in this district to advocate for transformation. I always welcome ideas around innovative and life changing approaches to creating quality and excellence in every single school across this district.”

Rodriguez added, “Is this plan a bold idea? Maybe. I don’t know the particulars.  But, I want to stay open to hearing about bold options and ideas to get to excellence in all of our schools. And, I want those bold ideas to come from the grassroots – communities, students, and parents.  I want to hear directly from our communities about what they need, what they want, and what they deserve.”

On the other hand, the other new board member, Scott Schmerelson, said, “I am opposed to any strategy that results in diluting and draining precious public school revenue or that does not fairly and equitably serve all students including English Learners, those with significant physical and mental health issues, homeless and foster youth, and those students and families for whom ‘choice’ is not an option.”

In that context, Schmerelson agreed with board president Steve Zimmer. In a recent interview with the Jewish Journal, Zimmer expressed his concern with the push by the big foundations.

“I believe in choice, but I am very, very wary. I am very cognizant of the damage that competition has done to our schools,” Zimmer told the Journal. “When a system becomes so obsessed with competition that they view children through their potential to score versus their overall humanity, the dehumanization of that public school system is not something that is attractive to parents, is not something that is warm and inviting. And our public schools, to my great regret, have become test score-obsessed. A lot of charter schools have, too.”

Zimmer added, “We have incredibly high levels of saturation. If choice is so important, the California Charter Schools Association agenda and the Walton Family Foundation and other foundations’ agendas to situate more and more charter schools within the LAUSD boundary is not about children. It’s not about choice. It’s not about innovation. It’s about a very different agenda of bringing down the school district, an agenda to dramatically change what is public education. It’s about altering the influence of public sector unions. I just happen to disagree with that agenda. But folks should be explicit about what their agenda is.”

Schmerelson added, “As a former teacher, counselor and principal, I believe that my most important responsibility as a newly elected school board member is to support all children by continuing to improve and strengthen our neighborhood schools. Our neighborhood public schools are mandated by law and tradition to maintaining the highest levels of professional staffing, transparent and inclusive decision-making, fiscal responsibility, and accountability to taxpayers.”

Mónica Ratliff, also a former teacher, has a large number of charters in her district. He expressed an open-mindedness about, so long as any expansion makes sense.

“When I first got into office, I did meet with some charter school operators to talk to them about this. And there were mixed feelings,” she said. “Some charter operators thought the more competition the better, and let it be free competition. Other charter school operators I think were sensitive to the fact that they have an established school now and to have other schools proliferate around them makes it more difficult for them as well. I think that this is something we should continue to dialogue about. It makes sense to have options for parents. But it also makes sense to make sure that schools are fiscally solvent as time goes on.”

Ratliff added, “I think that what we’re going to have to do as a district is figure out is how are we going to deal with the proliferation of charter schools because there’s no rhyme or reason in terms of locations … In the long run we should be working with our charter schools to try to figure out ways that would make sense for further development.”

Mónica García said she is open to any strategy that helps children graduate, and doesn’t see the proliferation of charter schools as the end of LAUSD.

“We know there is no one strategy for everybody,” she said. “Charters have been an important partner for LA Unified. I’m open to any strategy that helps children and families.”

“They’re part of the reason why there’s space,” she added. “They’re part of the reason why we have teacher-led academies. Our pilot schools and other district reform models took what we learned from charters and we brought it inside the district. I see a stronger district in the future that is about all of these strategies coming together. We have had to close some charter schools, and I’ve opposed the closing of some charter schools.”

Further, she said, “We are all still learners as a system and urban America has to learn from LA Unified. I would go to any philanthropic arm and say please invest in our kids. We have many. many good strategies that need support.”

Zimmer, in his interview with the Jewish Journal, acknowledged the difference of opinion on the board, but said, “Right now, we share an understanding that the cost of cutthroat competition in the public education system is greater than the real gains for some children.”

LA School Report was unable to include the views of the two other board members, Richard Vladovic and George McKenna. Vladovic did not respond to messages left, seeking comment, and McKenna’s office said he declines to be interviewed.

Two new LA Unified board members and two former board members took their oath of office today during a ceremony in which they vowed to bring unity and collaboration to the district and with each other.

For each member, it was the start of a five-and-a-half year term, following a change in the city’s voting schedule to get more people to the polls.

The other three board members _ new president Steve Zimmer, Mónica Ratliff and Mónica García — watched from the stage, along with lame-duck Superintendent Ramon Cortines, as newly-elected Ref Rodriguez and Scott Schmerelson, along with Richard Vladovic and George McKenna were given the oath of office.

In brief remarks after the oath, each member spoke with passion about  hoped-for unity on the new board and their dedication to serving. They also had kind words for Cortines.

Rodriguez, a charter school executive who won a contentious election campaign against Bennett Kayser, angering other board members, said he wanted to talk about the “U” in LAUSD.

“Unified means that we all are welcome, there’s a place for you in our district,” said Rodriguez, who also gave part of his speech in Spanish. “I want to make sure that we put love at the center of everything we do in this district.”

Rodriguez named each fellow board member by name and said, “I know that we will be unified in our quest to make Los Angeles excellent.” He even had a bro-hug for Zimmer, who had criticized him for the ugliness of his campaign.

McKenna, who ran unopposed after serving out the term of the late Marguerite LaMotte, said, “We must work together, but we don’t always have to agree.”

McKenna pointed out: “Our most important constituents didn’t vote for me because they aren’t old enough to vote, and they don’t know our names.”

He said, “If anyone knows anything more precious than children, you tell me.”

He praised Cortines and teachers, saying, “We know our teachers are more valuable than entertainers, more valuable than athletes, more valuable than politicians.”

Schmerelson, who described himself as “a plain old guy from the school,” was sworn in by representatives of the two unions who supported him in his victory over Tamar Galatzan: Colleen Schwab, a vice president of the teachers union, UTLA; and Judy Perez, the newly-retired president of the principals union, Associated Administrators of Los Angeles.

“I am the right person for the job,” he said. He pointed to all the union support he received in his election and said that “unions can united to work together.” Unlike Galatzan, who also worked in the city attorney’s office, Schmerelson said, “I will be a full-time board member.”

Schmerelson also promised a “bully-free” environment and promised that “parents get the attention and respect they deserve.”

Vladovic, the out-going board president who defeated Lydia Gutierrez in his bid for a third term, was given the oath by his son-in-law, Merrill T. Sparago. In his brief remarks, Vladovic conceded, “We have our problems as any family, but LA as a district works.”

He also praised Cortines, recalling a 6 a.m. telephone call from Cortines years ago when Cortines served in an earlier term as superintendent and Vladovic was an area supervisor.

“He pushes us hard, and that’s good,” Vladovic said. “There is not a person here who I question their motives. They all care about our children.”

The ceremony was held at the Edward R. Roybal Learning Center and was followed by a meeting at LA Unified headquarters, where Zimmer was voted in unanimously as board president.

With the addition of Schmerelson and Rodriguez, LA Unified now has a school board that has no member with a child in an LA Unified school.

Scott Schmerelson

* UPDATED

Ref Rodriguez is in the market for new friends. Specifically, friends on the LA Unified school board, which he’ll officially join tomorrow for a five-year term ending in 2020.

“I know I need to build some relationships with certain communities that may not trust me because of the campaign,” he told LA School Report.

He and the other 2015 board election winners — Scott Schmerelson, George McKenna and Richard Vladovic — will be sworn in at a special ceremony tomorrow, prior to a board meeting to select a board president.

Rodriguez, who trounced Bennett Kayser in the District 5 race, has been accused of being behind one of the nastiest campaigns for a school board seat in LAUSD history. Neighborhoods across the city, from Highland Park down to South Gate, were papered with fliers accusing Kayser of racism and opposing good schools for Latino children. Others intentionally misrepresented Kayser’s voting record on the district’s iPad deal.

And while Rodriguez has always insisted that his team had no involvement with negative ads paid for by the California Charter Schools Association, he now concedes that it’s weighing heavily on his mind as he thinks about the year ahead.

“There is a lot of repair that I have to do and I plan to do that in my first year,” he said, adding that some of that work has already started. Rodriguez had lunch with Steve Zimmer last week, a small gesture that represents a willingness of both men to move past the election and things said over those heated months.

Zimmer “damned” the Rodriguez campaign for its politicking at a Kayser rally then went on to say here that, “If there ever was a relationship there with Rodriguez, it has been seriously damaged.”

Rodriguez said another of his priorities is taking an active role in finding a replacement for Superintendent Ramon Cortines, who unexpectedly announced he plans on leaving the temporary post in six months.

Rodriguez is critical of the district’s track record in selecting a new leader.

“It hasn’t been inclusive,” he said. This time around, he says it’s imperative “to ensure that the public feels like they’re a part of the process. And not just at the end, when we’re down to the final three candidates.” Stakeholders should be weighing in along the way, he said.

Finally, there is the middle school cause, which he shares with Schmerelson, who beat out Tamar Galatzan in District 3. 

Both Rodriguez and Schmerelson say they hope to launch programs to reach struggling students in the fifth, sixth, seventh, and eighth grades.

“That’s where you can reach them and do the most good to make sure they don’t become [high school] drop outs,” Schmerelson, a former teacher, counselor and principal told LA School Report.

For Schmerelson some of that help should take the shape of after school programs, extra tutoring time and tough love.

“We need to end social promotion,” he said, getting riled up. Schmerelson explains that it is not totally unusual for a child to be held back in the elementary school for years but teachers and counselors are “strongly discouraged” from recommending that a student should repeat a grade in middle school.

“Many kids are not ready for high school and we are just fooling them, setting them up for failure when they get there,” he said.

It is one of the reasons that graduation rate projections are so low for the more rigorous A to G standards, according to Schmerelson. “Kids don’t understand that once you get to high school you don’t get moved up from class to class because your friends are moving on. You have to earn the credits.”

Schmerelson’s other “lofty goal” is changing federal regulations around school meals, which he says are set up to produce vast amounts of waste.

Elementary school students in the cafeteria line have two choices: take everything on the menu or nothing at all. There is no picking and choosing which means if a second grade girl is only interested in the Salisbury steak and wants to skip the mac ’n’ cheese, she has to get a full plate and throw away what she leaves untouched.

“That makes absolutely no sense but because of federal funding those are the rules and everyone has to follow them,” said an exasperated Schmerelson, who as a principal stood by and watched as tons of healthy and edible food was tossed into the garbage. Young children should have the same privileges as secondary school kids who can “grab and go,” he said.

Unlike Rodriguez, Schmerelson says he won’t need to work to get people on his side.

“I am the easiest person to get along with you’ve ever seen in your whole life,” he said, attributing his easy-goingness to his years of experience as a school principal.

“Sometimes parents are a little difficult and sometimes teachers are a little difficult so sometimes, you just have to listen, keep you mouth shut and be respectful,” he said. “That’s my MO.”

* Clarifies that Rodriguez’s campaign had nothing to do with campaign ads paid for by the California Charter Schools Association. An earlier version left that ambiguous.

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Scott Schmerelson

While sitting LA Unified board members are combing through the latest budget proposal and wrapping up other end of the year activities, the newly-elected representatives are busy staffing up and hiring some familiar names.

Scott Schmerelson, who replaces Tamar Galatzan as the District 3 representative on July 1, has named Arlene Irlando as his Chief of Staff. Irlando is a Special Assistant in the district’s Facilities Department and was previously Chief of Staff for former board member Nury Martinez, who is now a member of the LA City Council.

Schmerelson told LA School Report that among the dozens of applicants he met, Irlando had a resume and demeanor that appealed to him best because “she is very much like I am.”

“I’m soft spoken and I try to be reserved,” he said. “I try not to jump the gun, not be yelling, and that is how she is, too. She is very measured and careful with what she says.”

Ref Rodriguez, who defeated Bennett Kayser to represent the ear-shaped District 5, has hired Aixle Aman to lead his team, according to a district official who asked not to be identified. It is a step up for Aman, who currently serves as Galatzan’s Deputy Chief of Staff. Her first name is pronounced ACE-el.

Aman is a former elementary and middle school teacher with a public policy degree from Berkeley.

Rodriguez did not immediately respond to a request for comment.