Schools throughout the LA Unified school district joined more than 90,000 groups worldwide on Thursday to celebrate Character Day and talk about how to develop character strengths.

Although it’s impossible to tell exactly how many classrooms dealt with Character Day activities, Susan Ward Roncalli of the district’s Social Emotional Learning division said she was busy traveling to schools and helping with assemblies, rallies, photo boards and a balloon stomp.

“I visited three Orchard schools in Bell and Marina Del Rey Middle School, and all activities were great,” said Roncalli.

Marina Del Rey teacher Andrea Burke led students in joining the global conversation of characteristics such as empathy, kindness, honesty, leadership, resilience and justice. “We love Marina’s participation in this global event,” Burke said.

The Character Day education has involved 65 school districts, 24 universities and 70 nonprofit groups. In August, school board member Ref Rodriguez got a resolution passed that encourages district schools to celebrate the day.

Character education has been prevalent since the 1890s, is central to citizenship education and is focused on preparing individuals to make ethical judgments to improve conditions of civil society, Rodriguez wrote in his resolution.

Rodriguez tweeted photos at Magnolia Science Academy charter school and was represented there by Erica Gonzales.

“This is the district’s way to ensure a safe, caring and nurturing environment for all our youth,” Rodriguez said.

Principal Rafael Gaeta (Courtesy: LAUSD)

An announcement from LA Unified. For more see lausd.net.

At Nightingale Middle School, a college degree is within grasp, thanks to a new program there requiring students and their parents to attend Saturday classes. The Neighborhood Academic Initiative has a new home at Nightingale in the Highland Park area of Los Angeles. Directed by the University of Southern California, the initiative is a rigorous seven-year enrichment program designed to help students become college graduates.

“Nightingale Middle has a special place in my heart because it is part of the Cypress Park community that I grew up in, so I am always excited to see our students participate in unique programs like this,” said Board Member Dr. Ref Rodriguez. “Because of Principal Rafael Gaeta’s leadership and USC’s investment in our young people, Nightingale continues to expand opportunities for our students by putting them on a solid and affordable path to college.”

To qualify, only 34 sixth-grade students will be selected to participate. The applicant must be a first-generation college-bound student, and will attend the Saturday Academy, held at the USC campus in East Los Angeles. The Saturday Academy is a 10-week per semester program that offers students support in math, English, science and other core subjects.

Low-income students, who complete the program (grades six-12) and choose to attend USC, will be rewarded with a full, 4.5-year financial package, minus loans.

“We are very excited to partner with USC to offer this opportunity to our Nightingale students,” said Gaeta, principal of Nightingale Middle School. “Our students are more than ready to meet the challenge to become college and career ready and attend USC in the future.”

A sixth-grade orientation was recently offered to families. Additionally a session will be held for parents and students to meet USC representatives and answer their questions about the program.

Gaeta said that once students graduate from Nightingale, they will attend either Wilson or Lincoln high schools where the initiative is also offered.

Since 1997, students participating in the program have graduated high school with a 99 percent college-going rate.

LA Unified is fighting a costly enrollment slide, and its biggest battleground is middle schools.

As the district has lost 133,000 students since 2006, data show the biggest consistent declines in enrollment outside of high school over the past 10 years occur when students enter sixth grade.

And the drop has become more pronounced in recent years.

“There is this exodus that does happen in the middle school grades,” said school board member Ref Rodriguez. “When you have a choice and an option, parents look for those other options.”

In the 2007-08 school year, there was a 10 percent decrease in the number of sixth-graders enrolled in district schools compared to fifth-graders the year before. Last year, the decline was 16 percent.

During the past 10 years, the district lost more than 41,581 students from fifth to sixth grade. Even after accounting for the growth of charter schools, nearly 15,000 students simply vanished from the public school system. 

The district middle school that saw the biggest decline in enrollment over the past five years was Gage Middle School, though part of the decline was intentional, officials say.

In 2011, 2,569 sixth-, seventh- and eighth-graders attended the Huntington Park school as of that October, according to district enrollment data. The students were staggered on a year-round calendar because there wasn’t enough room in the school for all of them to attend classes at the same time.

Five years later, at the start of school last fall, enrollment was down to 1,707 students. The school has been on a traditional calendar for three years.

Principal Cesar Quezada said part of the enrollment decline is because the district opened two schools — Walnut Park Middle and Orchard Academies — to ease the overcrowding at Gage.

But another reason Quezada believes that students are leaving Gage Middle School is because of the growth of charter schools.

“In terms of the Huntington Park community, there are so many different charter schools in this area,” Quezada said.

Rena Perez, director of LA Unified’s Master Planning and Demographics, said it is unclear why sixth-grade enrollment consistently declines in district schools. She said her office doesn’t track individual students. But charter schools might have an influence.

According to independent charter school enrollment data compiled by LA Unified, there has been a steady and dramatic increase of students in charter schools in sixth grade compared to fifth grade.

In 2015-16, there was a 90 percent increase of sixth-graders enrolled in charter schools compared to fifth-graders the year before.

“It would appear that, yes, there is some increase in enrollment from fifth to sixth grade at charter schools that might account for the decrease in enrollment at district schools,” Perez said.

However, when looking at the raw numbers there is still a portion of students who are leaving district schools and not ending up at charter schools.

For example, there were 41,657 students enrolled in fifth grade in 2014-15 at district schools. The next year, there were 35,125 sixth-graders enrolled at district schools — a loss of 6,532 students.

At independent charter schools, there was an influx of 4,624 students in sixth grade in 2015-16 compared to fifth-graders the year before, which means about 1,900 students left the district schools and went somewhere other than a charter.

When looking at the entire 10 years of enrollment data, 41,581 fifth-graders in district schools did not enroll in sixth grade in district schools. During that timeframe, charters gained 26,748 students in sixth grade who were not enrolled in fifth grade. That meant 14,833 students left the district and did not enroll in an independent charter school authorized by LA Unified.

Rodriguez opened the district’s first charter middle school in 1999 and later co-founded a network of independent charter schools, Partnerships to Uplift Communities, located in northeast Los Angeles and the northeast San Fernando Valley.

“Families were fine with their local neighborhood elementary school. They loved them,” Rodriguez said. “Once they were getting to the place where they were having to make the decision about sending them to a large middle school, they were just having a conflict about that.”

Rodriguez said parents wanted a small, nurturing environment in middle school, like their children had in elementary school. Many charter schools offer smaller class sizes, while middle school classes in district schools are typically 30 to 35 students.

“In my opinion those that have the means go to private and those that have options go to charters,” Rodriguez said.

Gregory Vallone, principal of Mulholland Middle School in Lake Balboa, isn’t convinced that charters are the sole reason for the enrollment slide. He points out that private schools have been scooping up LA Unified students for years.

“I don’t say it’s just charter schools. I think it’s the whole gamut,” he said. “We’ve got to offer the best program we can offer and something that is really going to meet the needs of our school community.”

Robotics has been part of the answer for Mulholland Middle. Vallone will to open the district’s first robotics magnet program at his school when classes begin tomorrow. It will enroll about 220 students.

Vallone also worked to change the culture of the school when he became principal five years ago. In 2008, the school had nearly 1,900 students and was projected to enroll less than 1,000 students next year. Vallone said the school is expected to have 1,450 students enrolled this week.

It didn’t take a “magic pill” to reverse the enrollment decline, Vallone said.

“It’s a multi-faceted approach to problem solving,” he said.

The school implemented restorative justice and allowed teachers to teach an activity they were passionate about in the morning advisory period, such as guitar, dance and Italian. Students can choose which activity they enroll in, Vallone said.

Last year the school was recognized for its high attendance rates, and incidents of school discipline declined, Vallone said.

“We built something that kids wanted to come to,” he said.

Some schools do attempt to make a large middle school feel smaller as well. Quezada said at Gage, students are divided into academies, which students are assigned to in sixth grade and stay in throughout middle school. Academies have different areas of focus, like performing arts and health sciences.

“The whole purpose is just to personalize the learning experience for students,” he said.

Rodriguez also thinks another reason for the enrollment slide is that some families may be moving out of the city and the district’s boundaries, especially working-class families who can find cheaper housing and better schools outside of LA.

A 2007 district analysis of enrollment data and population trends titled “Why is LAUSD’s enrollment declining if the LA region’s population is growing?” found that population growth in LA County (7 percent from 2000 to 2005) does not include households with school-aged children. The study also found that families that had children within LA Unified boundaries were migrating out of LA, likely to San Bernardino and Riverside counties.

Since being elected to the board last year, Rodriguez has put a spotlight on middle schools with the establishment of a group focused on “Reimagining the Middle Grades.”

Rodriguez said he wanted to bring attention to the middle school grades because of the decline in enrollment seen in 6th grade in district schools and also because district middle school student test scores aren’t as high as scores in elementary and high school.

One measure, the new student accountability system data developed by six California school districts including LA Unified called the California Office to Reform Education (CORE), found that students in middle school scored an average of 60.35 on the 100-point scale, slightly edging out elementary schools, which averaged 59.1. High schools included in the data scored an average of 65.2.

• Read more: LAUSD middle schools in the CORE accountability index: the same old story on race and location applies

A total of 714 LA Unified schools were entered into the CORE system. Independent charter schools were not included, nor were special education centers, early education centers, adult education centers and continuation schools.

District enrollment data show that there is also a decline in enrollment between 9th and 10th, 10th and 11th and 11th and 12th grades in high school. This does not necessarily mean that students are leaving district schools, but it could be that students who enter high school in 9th grade aren’t receiving all the credits they need to be considered a 10th grade student the next school year and the same for 11th and 12th grades, officials said.

Another set of district enrollment data — which shows enrollment at each district and charter school from 2011-12 to 2015-16 — shows that within the past five years, the district has opened a number of magnet programs at the middle school level and a slate of new charter middle schools have opened. The school board has looked to magnet schools to help solve its enrollment problem.

Since 2011-12, 17 new charter middle schools have opened. Eight charter middle schools have closed, bringing the total to 44 charter middle schools operating last year.

Board District 1 in South LA has the highest number of charter middle schools. The most new charter middle schools that have opened since 2011 are located in Board District 7, which includes San Pedro.

There are 83 middle schools in LA Unified. About 57 middle schools have magnet programs, where just a portion of students at the school are enrolled in the magnet program. Since 2011-12, seven such programs have opened, some of which specialize in STEAM or medical and health science. There are four district middle schools where the entire school is a magnet program.

At Gage Middle School, Quezada hopes to expand its magnet program from 280 students to 350 students next school year. The school’s Science, Technology, Engineering and Math magnet program was created in 2003. Quezada said there is a waiting list.

The principal also hopes to create a dual language immersion program at the school since some of the feeder elementary schools offer such a program. He hopes that students will be able to continue their language training at the middle school level. Quezada also said Gage offers some STEM classes in the summer and on weekends that are taught by Cal State Dominguez Hills students who are aspiring teachers and supervised by credentialed teachers.

“I think those types of programs will certainly help our particular school be more attractive and be more marketable for our students and parents,” he said. 

Next: The middle schools that gained — and lost — the most.

A groundbreaking summit that plans to share best practices between LA Unified traditional school and charter school educators is at capacity with more than 350 people signed up for the Saturday event planned by Superintendent Michelle King.

From the moment she was appointed to the position in January, King said she planned to find ways to share best practices between educators at magnet, charter, pilot and traditional schools resulting in this Promising Practices Forum scheduled all day at the Sonia Sotomayor Learning Academies in Cypress Park. But don’t expect to just drop in to attend.

Although the event was free and open to the public for registration of 350 seats in early June, the registration closed on July 8. According to district spokesperson Monica Carazo, “We are at capacity and cannot accommodate any other participants.”

The event will kick off with school leaders such as King, school board President Steve Zimmer, board members Ref Rodriguez and Monica Ratliff as well as Local District South Superintendent Christopher Downing and Local District Northwest Superintendent Vivian Ekchian. They also expect Antonia Hernandez, president of the California Community Foundation, 
Yvette King-Berg, executive director of the Youth Policy Institute, and other LA Unified and charter school leaders.

Rodriguez and King plan to lead a panel discussion at the beginning of the event. Rodriguez spearheaded a resolution recently asking the superintendent to report back to the board after identifying successful programs and potential funding sources.

The forum is a culmination of King’s seven-month “listen and learn” tour as superintendent, and she is well aware of the divisiveness and conflicts that have occurred between traditional and charter schools with issues involving student safety, school choice, charter co-locations, teaching assessments, equitable funding, union disputes and general distrust among parents.

The forum will feature more than two dozen breakout sessions where school experts plan to share ideas and successful strategies for improving learning, parent engagement and school climate.

Results from this and other meetings will form the basis of King’s three-year plan for the district.

“We are all LA Unified school students,” King said at a previous forum with parents when asked about what she thought of charter schools. “It is unfortunate we have labels, saying that this one is better than that one. It’s not us versus them.”

At the Committee of the Whole meeting on June 28, the board honored Class of 2016 commencement speakers.

The district’s best teachers should be teaching at struggling schools, some LA Unified school board members suggested last week, with at least one board member calling for a future discussion on the issue.

The comments were made during a Committee of the Whole meeting last week on how the district can improve and “reimagine” middle school, which officials have acknowledged has historically received less attention than high schools and elementary schools.

Board member Ref Rodriguez, who penned the board resolution in January calling for the board to focus on the district’s nearly 200,000 middle school students, began the discussion on how the board can encourage successful teachers to teach at struggling schools. Board members Richard Vladovic and Monica Ratliff also expressed a willingness to discuss the issue.

“Who are our most talented teachers and are they being utilized in the most efficient and effective way in grades that really matter? … I really call to our partners about how are we more flexible in our bargaining contracts to make sure that the most qualified individuals work with our most needy students, but also in the grades that make tremendous difference, and the middle grades are those grades for me,” Rodriguez said.

“For me, it really comes back down to who is in front of our kids and how are they prepared,” he said.

Ratliff suggested the board discuss it at a future meeting.

The issue is likely to be contentious and will need to be hammered out through collective bargaining with the district’s teachers union, UTLA. It was also a key point in the landmark lawsuit Vergara v. California, which was overturned on appeal in April, in which plaintiff attorneys argued that teacher protection laws perpetuate a cycle of keeping ineffective teachers in low-income classrooms. The state Supreme Court must decide by summer’s end whether to hear the case.

Rodriguez was thanked Wednesday by Steve Zimmer during the Annual Board Meeting for bringing middle schools to the attention of the board. Zimmer was unanimously re-elected as the board’s president for his second one-year term. Recently adopted term limits prevent board members from serving more than two terms. During his remarks Zimmer went around the dais and thanked each board member for specific contributions they made to the board in the last school year.

Also at the meeting, Zimmer chose board member George McKenna as his vice president. McKenna also served as vice president last year. New student board member Karen Calderon, a senior at Hamilton High School, was sworn in to her new post Wednesday. Calderon follows Leon Popa who was chosen in January to be the board’s first student representative in decades. Student board members vote on issues in an advisory capacity and can participate in discussions but do not have access to closed session meetings or confidential materials.

During last week’s Committee of the Whole, the last committee meeting of the 2015-16 school year, board members also discussed expanding accelerated middle school math programs.

District officials explained how middle school is a time of transition for many students.

“It is the most complex time for youth,” other than from birth until about age 2, said Luther Burbank Middle School Principal Christine Moore.

“It’s at this time they’re aware of the changes. … It’s our job to figure out how to cradle them, how to put things in place to protect them while they try to take risks and figure things out,” she said.

Rodriguez pointed out that there are high-performing middle schools in the district. Burbank Middle School in Highland Park was on the state’s “Schools to Watch” list.

“But it’s not at scale and we’re not satisfied because it’s not at scale,” said Rodriguez, who co-founded a middle school 15 years ago.

Superintendent Michelle King, who was a middle school and junior high school teacher and administrator, stressed the importance of engaging students academically so they’ll be motivated.

“How do you get boys who are looking at girls to be engaged in mathematics?” she said, suggesting that middle school teachers should have more training on engagement techniques.

Ratliff discussed a June 27 memo to the board on the number of accelerated math programs offered in each board district that showed some disparities of where the classes are offered.

This graph from a June 27 board memo shows the number of schools by district that offer highly accelerated math courses.

She noted there are no highly accelerated math courses offered in her district.

“My feeling is this needs to be remedied immediately,” she said. “So as we are moving into the next school year, I would expect to see more offerings in terms of highly accelerated math courses, certainly so it’s not zero in board District 6 and arguably, I think, in many of our districts, it could be increased.”

McKenna, who chairs the committee, said he thought the emphasis on cognitive skills building in literacy and mathematics was missing from the report.

“What I don’t want, and I’m going to exaggerate with this and then bring it back, I don’t want us to feel good if our students feel better about doing mediocre. … I have seen too many students enter middle school feeling great, but they don’t know what 7 times 6 is,” he said.

The Middle Grades Collaborative, which consisted of researchers, educators, parents, students and district staff, came up with a number of recommendations and prototypes, but requested more time from the board to continue its work in order to present a detailed action plan.

The group found through its research that “it is imperative that middle school become significantly more student-centered.”

One of the suggested prototypes was a social-emotional barometer, by which students can acknowledge to their teachers how they are feeling at the beginning of the day. Another was Harry Potter-style houses that students would be part of throughout their years in middle school. Another suggestion was a student-led school where students would serve in the “legislative branch” of the school’s governance, while the executive branch would be made up of a principal and other staff.

Board member Monica Garcia said she would like the middle school group to have a budget figure attached to their recommendations when they come back to the board.

Almost without comment Tuesday, the LA Unified school board voted unanimously to seek help from outside the district to replicate high-achieving schools.

The resolution was introduced by Monica Garcia and Ref Rodriguez and asks the district staff to “seek outside support for the funding” to replicate successful school programs in areas of high need in the district.

The resolution, Offering Families More—Promoting, Celebrating and Replicating Success Across LAUSD, asks the superintendent to report back to the board within 60 days on the progress of identifying the successful programs and potential funding sources.

“I am glad to see the board supporting our multiple levels of seeing what works,” Garcia told LA School Report. “I was pleased and encouraged by behavior that is focused on moving to high-quality education.”

The resolution points to specific kinds of schools, and their successes, that could head off the decline in enrollment — and losing students to charter schools — by beefing up magnet, pilot and dual language schools.

• Read more: Are magnets the answer to LAUSD’s enrollment problem?

The resolution was proposed by the two board members most vocally supportive of charter schools (Rodriguez co-founded one), and they can see collaboration with philanthropic groups that others view as threatening to the district.

Rodriguez said he envisions collaboration with all sorts of philanthropical organizations, including colleges and even NASA. “I believe there is a lot of philanthropy for this and there is still a way to engage philanthropy to this district rather than just give to charters,” Rodriguez said.

By identifying the best programs, he said, “We can work with foundations and support these programs.”

Great Public Schools Now, which receives funding from philanthropic groups Rodriguez cited, issued a statement about the passing of the resolution and said, “We are encouraged by the LAUSD resolution seeking to replicate high-performing district schools. One of the best ways to bring additional educational opportunities to Los Angeles students is to expand the schools — charter, district or magnet — that are already succeeding. We look forward to working in partnership with LAUSD on this effort.”

GPSN is an independent, non-profit organization working to accelerate the growth of high-quality public schools and significantly reduce the number of students attending chronically low-performing schools in Los Angeles.

Ref Rodriguez co-authored the resolution.

“We are trying to walk a tightrope and are concerned with the polarized conversation outside of the board or in the media,” Rodriguez said. The discussion didn’t happen, at least this time, at the school board level, since the resolution was passed under the consent calendar.

Garcia added, “If we don’t work with GPSN, then they will only support charters. We have different levels of philanthropic parent engagement and a lot of partners, we just want to see that accelerate. With groups like GPSN there’s an opportunity to help children and staff and leaders, and I’d like to have multiple ways of moving what works.”

The resolution pointed to successes in the district, such as Francisco Bravo Medical Magnet High School which ranked in the top 50 high schools in the state while 90 percent of its student population qualify for free and reduced-price meals; King Drew Magnet High School of Medicine and Science which saw 72 percent of its students meet or exceed standards in English Language Arts on last year’s Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium, with 82 percent qualifying for free and reduced meals; and Downtown Business High School that has a graduation rate of 94 percent, with 84 percent qualifying for free and reduced meals.

The resolution is a way the board is showcasing high-performing schools, and Garcia noted in a news release, “The movement toward 100 percent graduation in Los Angeles is a model for the nation on collaboration and partnership with students, families, educators, employees, schools and community partners. As trustees for our children’s education, we are responsible for strengthening the bridges into our district and beyond our district for our college- and career-ready graduates and accelerating success for all. Today, we reaffirm our commitment to every child in Los Angeles in our search for partnership and investment for the schools our students deserve.”

For the past year, the board passed several resolutions all heading in the same direction, some creating long philosophical debates. The resolutions such as “Believing in Our Schools Again,” “Equity on A-G: Reaffirming Our Commitment to A-G Life Preparation for All,” “Zero Dropouts in LAUSD” and “Excellent Public Education for Every Student,” all passed after long discussions.

“Due to this district’s limited resources, we cannot do this work alone,” Rodriguez said in the district news release. “We call on our external partners, community organizations and businesses to invest in the replication of our successful district programs.”

He referred to school models that have found success in science, math, technology, arts and engineering academies and magnets.

Garcia added, “We can’t do this alone, we have to repurpose money and replicate best practices. This is going to lead to good conversations.”

Rachel Greene

Leaders from major parent groups brought school board members their recommendations for improving parent involvement in LA Unified.

Topping their list is a centralized Parent Advocate office and website for their concerns, they told board members of the Early Childhood Education and Parent Engagement Committee on Tuesday. Other  recommendations include involving parents in every principal search committee and providing resources and training.

One simple thing for the district to do is apologize to parents. “Apologizing for mistakes is actually evidence-based and reduces litigation,” said Kathy Kantner, a member of the Community Advisory Committee who spoke Tuesday.

School board member Ref Rodriguez, the committee’s chairman, said, “I’m very excited about this report, this is something we’ve been building up to.”

The biggest problem for parents is trying to figure out how to address grievances because there are so many avenues when dealing with the district’s downtown Beaudry headquarters. The various parent groups formed a study group that spanned all of the Local Districts and came up with suggestions, including:

• Establish an Office of the Parent Advocate with a website and telephone helpline that the parents suggest could be funded by the mayor’s office or LA County Office of Education.

• Hire and train administrators to be service leaders who have positive attitudes toward parental involvement in schools.

• Continue working to engage “everyday parents” but acknowledge and appreciate parent leaders, and perhaps designate them as Parent Ambassadors with different-colored volunteer badges.

• Share power in major decision making, budgets and other committees.

• Provide resources and training to parents when they are on campus at new family orientations, open houses and other events.

• Improve the handling of the use of Disruptive Persons Letters which the district gives to parents who create problems on campus and have their access to the school limited.

“We all know there are people who are struggling with mental issues and substance abuse, but too often these DPLs are given because of a power struggle with parents,” said  Kantner.

There were 486 DPLs handed out to parents in the last three years. Some parents get issued such a letter without being able to tell their side of the story, Kantner said.

“Our biggest ask is for the Office of Parent Advocate,” Kantner said. “We are in a position of growth and improvement with the district, by the very fact that we are having this discussion.”

She pointed out, “If I’m a parent and have a problem, it’s really hard to figure out where to go.”

Rachel Greene, of the Parent Advisory Committee, also presented the report.

Juan Jose Mangandi from the District English Learner Advisory Committee said through a translator, “It is time for parents to be critical and see what we lack for our children in education. We must change the attitude of coldness of education by people who see it as a business and not as a mission.”

Some parents mentioned former Superintendent John Deasy as creating some of the problems with parental engagement. “For Deasy engagement was not his strength,” said  Araceli Simeon of Parent Organizing Network. “We saw how he engaged parents, board members … and that had an effect. The leader sets the tone for the rest of the structure.”

Board member Scott Schmerelson said that when he was a principal he felt most problems could be solved at his level, and he resented when parents went over his head. “Most issues can be solved right at the site,” he said.

Kantner said she had once been told to stop calling people at the Beaudry headquarters. “When an issue wasn’t resolved it seems like our concerns were shunted aside,” Kantner said.

Juan Molinez, another parent who spoke during the public comment period, said he is concerned about parental involvement in the district because “especially the low-income families have a lot of outrage.” He said the meetings are not enough. “The voices of other parents are not being heard. Parental involvement is free, and we can help so much more.”

“It is important that the district has done so much to engage with parents, but we have a long way to go,” Rodriguez said. “Only through working together can we get there.”

Rodriguez asked for another report at his next meeting to determine whether to go before the full board for specific actions.

LAUSD school board members, from left, Monica Ratliff, Ref Rodriguez and Richard Vladovic.

Members of the LA Unified school board are taking the lead in identifying, encouraging and replicating successful schools with two resolutions that will be discussed at Tuesday’s board meeting.

One, sponsored by Monica Garcia and Ref Rodriguez, called Offering Families More – Promoting, Celebrating and Replicating Success Across LAUSD, asks that the district identify best strategies to replicate high-performing schools.

The other, sponsored by Monica Ratliff, Richard Vladovic and Rodriguez, titled Supporting Quality Educational Options for Students and Families Through the Development of Magnet Schools, asks for the district to break the backlog of applications for new magnet school programs and start approving more.

Both resolutions will ask Superintendent Michelle King to act within a short period of time to figure out how to duplicate the best schools in the district.

“These resolutions happened completely parallel to each other and yet they have some great connections because we are talking about how to replicate best practices,” Rodriguez said. “We do not have an incubator of ideas or innovation, and replicating best practices is one of the common things both of these resolutions propose.”

Garcia said in an emailed statement: “I am excited that the board is interested in being more intentional and strategic on resourcing and creating success. I hope there is a board majority that wants to be public about their support for a superintendent Plan of Action to increase achievement, creates excellence and supports equity and high-quality schools in every community.”

Garcia said her resolution involves all the different learning models, including dual language, linked learning, pilots and small-themed schools. She said, “My resolution is about creating diverse options for families to choose the district, stay in the district and celebrate 100 percent graduation with this district.”

King stated when she took over in January that identifying and encouraging successful schools was one of her top goals. The district is seeking to boost enrollment and graduation rates as well as stave off a predicted $450 million budget deficit in three years.

The Development of Magnet Schools resolution, which Ratliff asked to fast-track for a vote Tuesday, points out there are 22 applications for magnet schools in the 2017-2018 school year and 47 other schools interested in opening such programs, but the Office of Student Integration Services is “unable to support additional interested schools in their efforts to open a magnet program.”

There are now 210 magnet schools in the district serving 67,000 students, and most of those have higher testing performance levels than traditional and charter schools.

Read more on magnet schools: Are they the answer to LAUSD’s enrollment program? 

LA School Report was told there is some fine-tuning going on with some parts of the resolutions, including financial implications, but both will give the superintendent some direction to explore what it would take to get them done. The magnet schools resolution asks that King’s staff come up with addressing the backlog in a report to the board by June 30.

The Offering Families More resolution emphasizes successful community schools and asks for the district to consider more resources to continue similar programs. This resolution gives King and her staff 60 days to investigate “strategies to replicate high-performing district schools in areas of high need and to seek outside support for the funding of such replication.”

That resolution may look like it could pave the way to make the school board more amenable to plans from Great Public Schools Now and other groups looking to increase the number of high-quality schools in LA.

“It is time that the district consider how to partner with philanthropic organizations,” Rodriguez said. “I hope that this would be a vehicle to do great collaborations.”

Rodriguez said he contacted Ratliff’s office late Friday to join her resolution involving magnet schools. “It was totally by coincidence, but ultimately both will be great for the district,” he said.

The school board meets at the 333 S. Beaudry Ave. headquarters at 1 p.m. Tuesday. It will be broadcast live.

George McKenna and Monica Garcia in school board debate.

If anything, it was good television.

LA Unified school board members confronted each other headlong in a dramatic discussion Tuesday night over whether charter schools were being treated fairly by the district.

The discussion opened calls for a deep dive into how district staff comes up with its recommendations for denials or approvals of charter schools.

The debate erupted during talks about the renewal and a new application for two charter schools run by Partnership to Uplift Communities (PUC). By state law, the school board oversees the creation of charter schools in the district and renews the contracts for up to five years. LA Unified is the second largest school district in the nation and has the largest number of charter schools.

PUC students and teachers cheer after vote.

Because board member Ref Rodriguez co-founded PUC, he stepped out of the meeting and watched on closed-circuit live stream television, which is also available to the public.

The drama began when recent media reports, including those in LA School Report, were brought up that suggested charter schools were under more scrutiny.

Monica Garcia, whose district has the PUC schools, said flatly, “I think that the politics of the board has changed.” When asked to clarify the statement by board President Steve Zimmer, she repeated the statement.

Monica Ratliff responded, “I think something has changed. I’m not necessarily opposed to it, but let’s be transparent about it.”

• VIDEO: To watch the board members’ debate, start at 5 hours 51 minutes into the meeting in this video. 

Ratliff asked the chief of the Charter Schools Division, Jose Cole-Gutierrez, why the staff suggested denying the PUC petitions. “It seems like you are saying we are always consistent in our denials,” she asked.

Cole-Gutierrez said, “We strive to be consistent, period.”

George McKenna, the senior statesman of the board and vice president, called out some of the statements by his fellow board members. Sitting next to Garcia, he said he didn’t like the idea that she suggested that charter school decisions are based on politics.

“I’m concerned with the conversation of my colleagues. I’m not making my decision based on politics,” said McKenna, then he pointed across the dais to Ratliff and said, “Also, I have a problem with [saying] we have public allegations, therefore we have to do an investigation.”

McKenna said, “Charter renewal is based on intensive data analysis.”

Nevertheless, before the night was over, the board would ignore the data collected by the staff and approve the two petitions recommended for denial, and deny one petition for a charter school that the staff suggested for approval.

Attorney David Holmquist consults with Superintendent Michelle King.

McKenna also called out Zimmer for asking Cole-Gutierrez if he believed that PUC could change in the future. McKenna said they should stick to the data.

“I love these kids, love them,” he said, looking down at two 10-year-old fifth-graders who waited eight hours to testify to the board.

McKenna suggested that Ratliff didn’t trust the staff recommendations. “I don’t think we are in a position of analyzing him because we don’t like his outcome. Why don’t you just make your decision instead of finding his data is flawed.”

Ratliff retorted, “I’m offended actually with what you are saying.” She said she wasn’t questioning the data from staff, but simply the history and procedures based on allegations by the charter school petitioners.

“I’m not saying that the data he’s providing is inaccurate data,” Ratliff said. “What I’m asking for is a five-year analysis of our denials and approvals.”

During the entire debate, in an audience filled with about 75 people, Zimmer allowed the discussion to continue. He even allowed for a straw vote, which he called “unorthodox.” He turned to new Superintendent Michelle King sitting next to him and asked if she had an opinion, and she reminded him that the staff decision had to be signed off by her.

For the denial of the PUC Excel Charter Academy renewal, a tie vote meant there would be no action and the school could remain. McKenna, Scott Schmerelson and Richard Vladovic voted to deny the school, while Ratliff, Garcia and Zimmer voted to approve, with Zimmer saying, “I do trust the staff.”

For the petition to open the PUC International Preparatory Academy, the board worked out approving the school for only three years, negotiating up from McKenna’s suggested two years so the school can have data showing improvement rates. That vote ended with all voting for the school except Zimmer.

When Rodriguez returned to the room after the votes, he gave a wave to his former PUC colleagues.

‘Healthy’ debate

In an interview with LA School Report on Wednesday afternoon, Rodriguez said he has yet to speak to his fellow board members about the debate the night before, but he found it all fascinating.

“I’m OK with the discourse I saw last night, that’s an important component of the work,” Rodriguez said. “It was healthy to put things out into the public, but I also thought that some of it was not well thought out.”

He said he was surprised by some of the votes after the heated debate, but said, “As an observer and colleague it tells me a lot in the sense that it’s an issue by issue thing, that gives me some hope. It isn’t that ‘I’m in this camp always voting no’ and ‘I’m in this camp always voting yes.’ There are individuals being thoughtful about it.”

Ultimately, Rodriguez said, “We have the same regulations, the same policies, the same standards for charters, but I do believe something has changed around holding them accountable. I’m not against that, but it needs to be consistent. I’m not sure that’s where we are at this point.”

Rodriguez blamed the dire financial crisis facing the district. “The board is strained and stressed around the financial cliff coming our way, and so I think that is playing out in decisions, and particularly in charters. Because it is a general public belief that charters siphon kids from the district and that’s the reason we’re in the situation, until we have a coherent comprehensive plan for how we will address the financial situation there will be this forced decision making. Some will feel forced against the wall with no other relief valve in sight, and this is the only way we know.”

As a former charter operator, Rodriguez said he agreed with Ratliff’s idea to look back at five years of data. “We should see how many renewals the board overturned and how many got renewed that were in a similar situation as PUC Excel with the same data. This is holding a mirror up to say are we being consistent.”

Rodriguez said he is not questioning staff data, nor did he believe Ratliff was, but said, “If there’s a pattern, we could course correct. I want to have quality oversight and be analytical about it. I have no interest in the department being a puppet of the board. That unit needs to be rigorous in its approach to its work, so that it helps me make the best decisions.”

At the meeting, Zimmer said he had a high bar to approve charters. “We are looking at one school, and the data presented has some hard truths.”

Schmerelson suggested that principals write letters to the editor asking for “an investigation and find out maybe the charter is not being fair to the neighborhood schools in the area.”

Vladovic said, “I don’t think the inconsistency is with the staff, it’s with our votes. We allow some to go through. If there’s a problem, it’s us.”

Kathy Kantner at the Feb. 2 meeting of the LA Unified school board’s Early Childhood Education and Parent Engagement Subcommittee.

By Kathy Kantner, Rachel Greene and Juan Jose Mangandi

Readers of LA School Report’s coverage of the Feb. 2 meeting of the Board of Education’s Early Childhood Education and Parent Engagement Subcommittee can be forgiven if they only perceived the heat in the boardroom but not the light. It would be unfortunate, however, if LA School Report’s overly dim view of the state of parent engagement in the district was the last word on the subject.

In fact, we, the parents who chair the district’s central advisory committees, feel a budding optimism about parent engagement efforts within LAUSD. Now more than ever, LAUSD realizes that to increase enrollment in our schools, staff must commit to creating welcoming environments and truly partner with parents in word and deed. We believe a cultural shift is taking place.

For starters, the chair of the ECE/PE, Dr. Ref Rodriguez, asked us to present on the challenges and opportunities experienced by our committee members. This is the first time, to our knowledge, parents have been offered such a chance. Dr. Rodriguez invited us back to present recommendations for improvements at an upcoming meeting. We will certainly take him up on this.

Yes, LAUSD has bungled parent engagement previously. Many members of our central committees have psychic bruises to show for it, and valid complaints. The incident(s) where parents were removed by an officer from a central committee meeting happened in the past. Previous dysfunction and acrimony on parent committees have been covered in the media, including by LA School Report (see here, here and here). We mentioned this in our report to the subcommittee to start the conversation about how to improve our parent committees. Constructive criticism can be productive. Can we please move on and turn our attention to what can be done here and now to drive improvements?

Positive trends have been noted this year:

• Our new superintendent mentioned partnering with parents as one of her key leadership priorities.
• Rowena Lagrosa, chief executive officer of Parent, Community Student Services noted during a recent presentation that LAUSD has hired Dr. Joyce Epstein, of Johns Hopkins University, an expert in parent engagement best practices, to help 27 schools develop activities that will improve family engagement efforts.
• We are hoping for a smooth rollout of the new PASSPORT system, which, if implemented as intended, would start to improve communication between families and schools and would also introduce a centralized way to enroll in LAUSD’s magnet, SAS, school of choice and other programs.

If we believed our participation on central committees was pointless, we wouldn’t bother to show up. If parents act acrimoniously they will not be offered meaningful ways to contribute. Engagement is a two-way street. The conversation in the boardroom last Tuesday could promote the following future developments:

Providing child care for committee members with young children, or reimbursement, to increase participation.

Collaborating with members for more representative committee structures.

Receiving our recommendations for how LAUSD can handle complaints at school sites with greater responsiveness to parent concerns.

We will explore strategies to ensure that our committees attract a diverse membership and that changes result in a better experience for all members.

Parents who are considering enrolling their children in an LAUSD school should feel assured that exciting new programs and a continued focus on how to better meet the needs of students are driving positive changes in the district. Furthermore, the dedicated, passionate, knowledgeable parent leaders on central committees will continue to advocate on behalf of all students. We hope LA School Report will report on our progress.

*The views expressed herein reflect the opinions of the three authors and not the views of the membership of the respective committees cited above.

Kathy Kantner is chair of the Community Advisory Committee. Rachel Greene is chair of the Parent Advisory Committee. Juan Jose Mangandi is chair of the District English Learners Advisory Committee.

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.”

Ref Rodriguez

By Ref Rodriguez

Middle school can make it or break it for a student.

Close to 200,000 students in Los Angeles public schools are middle grade students. That’s 200,000 students who are either launched onto the path to high school graduation or knocked off track. And even though research has definitively shown that middle grades experiences have substantial impact on high school graduation and success in college, not enough attention has been paid to these formative years.

That must change.

Many of our middle grade students face a range of challenges that can severely impact their academic performance. Three out of four attend overcrowded campuses, according to a United Way report. One of three show signs of depression. One of every two eighth-graders does not take algebra, a gateway to higher-level thinking.

That’s shameful because the biggest threat to our public education system has now become a complacent attitude toward dismal statistics such as these. If we want to strengthen our local, state, and national economies, we can no longer remain silent in the face of inadequate and unequal learning conditions and opportunities.

Beyond academics, the middle grades are a time when adolescents experience immense social, emotional, and physical changes. Put simply, they are figuring out who they are.  We can help middle grade students become who they want to be by providing innovative and meaningful learning opportunities. For example, the middle grades are a good opportunity to introduce a new language, whether it’s a student’s second or third.  And, let’s encourage our teachers to loop with their students to the next grade, which gives them a sense of continuity that’s absent in the class-shuffling middle grades. 

How do I know? For over a decade I’ve been intensely focused on success in these grades. When I co-founded a middle school in my community, I was driven by my passion to ensure that students between elementary and high school were able to attend a school that prepared them both academically and socially for the rest of their lives. That passion was fed during my campaign by the large number of parents who voiced a similar concern. Today, that fervor grows even stronger, not only for the youth in my board district but also for all students across Los Angeles.

Because I strongly believe that the best ideas for change come from the grassroots, I authored a board resolution, “Creating a Collaborative to Focus on the Middle Grades,” to bring together a team of students, parents, educators, school leaders, researchers, district staff and other experts to create a framework to uplift and reimagine the middle grades in L. A. Unified. The board voted unanimously in support of this resolution. This is the first step in the right direction toward ensuring that our students, as they step into high schools, remain on track to graduate college and become career-ready.

This resolution is historic for LAUSD and for the entire country. The last time we deliberately examined the middle grades this closely was when we came up with the middle schools concept in the 1960s and 70s to separate the campuses from elementary schools. I hope that other districts across the state and nation will also follow suit and make a commitment to our middle grade youth.

I’m not sure what this collaborative will recommend. I don’t have a personal agenda. I simply want us to ask the right questions and to think out-of-the-box.  As individuals, we already have innovative resources and ideas. But, if we work collaboratively, we can truly transform the middle grades and begin to make a substantial and sustainable impact for our students.

These years are widely known as an awkward stumbling block. Let’s turn them into a stepping stone to high school graduation and a pathway to college and life success.

Before his election to the LA Unified school board, representing communities in Northeast and Southeast Los Angeles, Ref Rodriguez co-founded the Partnerships Uplifting Communities (PUC Schools), a charter management organization serving communities in the Northeast San Fernando Valley, Northeast Los Angeles, and Northeast Rochester, NY.  

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.”

Daniel Cruz and Malia Sandoval, both 10, wait to speak.

The LA Unified school board this week awarded, renewed or revised requests from 10 charter schools, and two applications for new schools were rejected. Some of the approvals came with specific warnings by board members to shape up.

The charter approvals came at the same meeting that the board unanimously condemned the Eli Broad-affiliated group, Great Public Schools Now, and approved another resolution requiring stringent transparency requirements for charter schools.

Charter petitions and renewals are routine at LAUSD school board meetings. Even so, 50 or more families often line up as early as daybreak to get into the school board meeting to vouch for their charter schools. Most votes are unanimous because state law provides stringent reasons for denying them.

At this week’s meeting, fifth graders Malia Sandoval and Daniel Cruz, both 10, waited more than six hours to speak about their Los Feliz Charter School for the Arts. “I love all subjects and the classes have us interact with each other,” said Malia. “My favorite was making shadow puppets.”

In the case of Los Feliz charter, board member Mónica Ratliff pointed out a lack of diversity in the racial mix of the students. She also said many students in her district would be interested in the unique arts program at the school.

“Our job is to push for diversity,” Ratliff said. “It’s more than just white people who like art. We have a lot of artist in Pacoima, we have a lot of artist in Sylmar.”

The district’s charter school division director, José Cole-Gutiérrez, said the school came close to being denied renewal because of its lack of ethnic diversity, but he noted improvement, an observation that helped sway a vote to approve. ”They have made outreach efforts, and they are making progress,” he said.

Los Feliz Charter School has only 35 of 505 students coming from the local area, and 56 percent are white. Board member Ref Rodriguez said the school’s arts education is “phenomenal” and convinced other board members that the school was aiming for greater diversity.

The material revision and renewal for the Los Feliz Charter School for the Arts were approved, with the only dissent coming from board president Steve Zimmer. But board member Scott Schmerelson shook his finger at the crowd from the school and said, “You need to fix a few things.”

Two charter petitions were denied for LA’s Promise Charter Middle School and High School. The CEO and president of LA’s Promise, Veronica Melvin, said her schools have been around for 15 years and have an 80 percent graduation rate and 90 percent of the graduates going on to colleges. She said she found it “frustrating” working with the district’s charter division and that it “created a story to support their negative findings.”

After some parents and teachers spoke in favor of LA’s Promise, former school board member David Tokofsky suggested that the school board set out “more precise granular definitions” to mark charter school success.

“It would be very helpful for the board to define the granular of what is a sound educational program and fiscal issues,” he said.

Click here to sign up for the LA School Report newsletter, and don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

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.

Click here to sign up for the LA School Report newsletter, and don’t forget to follow us on Facebook and Twitter.

The 7.5-acre campus will accommodate PUC Triumph Charter Academy for grades 6 through 8 and two high schools — PUC Triumph Charter High School and PUC Lakeview Charter High School. The campus also includes facilities that all three schools will share, including a state-of-the-art gym, a soccer field, regulation basketball courts, baseball/softball diamond, science labs, a theater and dance room.

The thee schools had been operating at different sites before now.

The $26 million campus is expected to reach the full capacity of 1,250 students by next school year. Currently, 250 students are on the waiting list to attend one of the three schools, which were financed through a bond and $600,000 from the Ahmanson and Weingart foundations.

PUC –Partnerships to Uplift Communities — operates 12 PUC public charter schools that provide college prep educational programs in densely-populated urban communities with low-achieving schools in northeast Los Angeles and the northeast San Fernando Valley. There group also runs one school in Rochester, NY.

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.

]]> https://www.laschoolreport.com/schmerelson-taps-former-martinez-aide-irlando-as-chief-of-staff/ Thu, 18 Jun 2015 22:06:57 +0000 http://laschoolreport.com/?p=35230

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.