New L.A. Unified student board representative Frances Suavillo is sworn in on Sept. 3. (L.A. Unified)

High school senior Frances Suavillo has always believed education is a right and not a privilege.

She’s seen firsthand when it’s not. Born and raised in the Philippines until she was 9 years old, Suavillo saw deep-seated educational inequity in the Southeast Asian island country — how “money dictated who went to school and who didn’t,” she said. And in the years since she moved to the U.S. in 2010, that reality has only strengthened her resolve to lift and empower all students.

Suavillo, who attends Carson High School in Los Angeles, was sworn in Sept. 3 as L.A. Unified’s fifth student school board member since the board voted to revive student participation in 2014. Thirty-nine Associated Student Body representatives from 22 high schools across the district elected Suavillo to the seat in April, over six other finalists. She is replacing Class of 2019 graduate Tyler Okeke to represent more than 600,000 students: roughly 486,000 from traditional schools and more than 138,000 attending charters.

“At the end of the day, it all boils down to students,” Suavillo said. “The student board member gives that platform to students to take their own education into their own hands.”

Student representatives in L.A. Unified serve in an advisory role only, but can propose resolutions like any other member.

Former L.A. Unified student board member Okeke made waves in April, for example, when he brought a resolution asking the district to study whether it’s possible to allow 16- and 17-year-olds to vote in school board elections. The resolution passed and is under review.

Suavillo doesn’t take the role lightly. Her first priority, she said, will be to ensure that the district is catering to and supporting English learners, who make up a quarter of the student body. Suavillo was an English learner for a year when she first enrolled in L.A. Unified nine years ago.

“I want to make sure that students have positive role models who look like them and who have had similar experiences,” she said. “I am excited about what is ahead.”

Frances Suavillo being sworn in on Sept.3. (L.A. Unified)

Student board members aren’t commonplace, especially at behemoth districts like L.A. Unified. At least four of the country’s 10 largest districts have a student board member, according to information available on their websites. The other three are all in Florida — Miami-Dade County Public Schools, Broward County Public Schools and the School District of Palm Beach County.

Suavillo chatted with The 74 this summer about her passions, aspirations, how she intends to connect with students, and her favorite Netflix binge. The interview has been lightly edited for brevity and clarity.

The 74: Tell me a bit about what education was like for you in the Philippines.

Suavillo: I was fortunate enough to go to a private school in the Philippines, but I know so many people who went through a public school education. And even in public school education, you had to pay for everything. Nothing was ever as acceptable as it is here in the United States.

What are your aspirations post-high school, and how does this position tie into that?

I’ve wanted to be a diplomat for so long. I want to be able to represent the country and help out with international affairs and public relations [mainly on immigration and education]. And being the student board member for L.A. Unified is a huge stepping stone for that future career goal. I’ll be able to improve my public speaking skills, be able to connect and network with different people that I’m not always exposed to. And that’s so important if I want to be able to make connections with people who are from completely different sides of the world.

Is your goal to go to college? Any top choices?

Yes. I want to be able to attend Harvard University, which is a big dream. I’m actually studying economics there right now; I’m in Boston for the summer. It gives me college credits, and can also qualify for high school credit.

Frances Suavillo on Harvard University’s campus this summer. (Frances Suavillo)

You’re going to be a new face for a lot of students. So in the spirit of that, what are some fun facts about you?

● Student group involvement: I’m part of the California Scholarship Federation [at Carson High School], and I’m also part of a club called Share the Love Club, which helps the homeless in the L.A. area. (Suavillo will remain president of both in 2019-20. She founded Share the Love).

● Favorite place to eat this summer: Cane’s Chicken Fingers. I’ve been wanting to try it and I put it off for so long, but I finally tried it in Boston and I’m in love with it.

● Favorite TV show on Netflix: I binge-watch Netflix seasons in a day. When the new Stranger Things came out, I was done in I think 14 hours.

● Favorite sport to play or watch: I’m a big fan of volleyball, especially high school volleyball for the Carson High team. The boy’s volleyball team is incredible — they won the city championship last season, and I’m so proud.

● Biggest role model: My great-great-aunt. She basically raised my dad in the Philippines and she helped raise us. She’s the reason why I am who I am today.

Tell me a little bit about your passion topics. What types of things can we expect to hear you talking about as a school board member?

I want to dedicate my time trying to help the English learner program, once being a part of it myself when I first moved to the United States. It’s very close to me. Even though [I was in the EL program] a short amount of time, it was my first real experience with the U.S. public school system, so my first memories tied in with the U.S. was the EL program.

What are you hoping to accomplish for English learners?

I want to help make sure that the EL program caters to what the EL students need in order to succeed.

One thing that I learned from current English learners is that [they] find it more beneficial for them to be included in regular English classes, rather than a class that is designed for English learners only. Being surrounded by people who speak the same language as they do gives them the incentive to continue to speak in their native tongue rather than practicing their English skills. It’s an idea that I want to bring up to the board.

● Read More: English learners in California remain at the bottom of state test scores with only a hint of progress — and it’s even worse in Los Angeles

What do your peers think about the current system, and what do they want you to focus on as a student board member?

Many of my friends who are now experiencing the college life, a lot of them come back and say that they feel like they are at a disadvantage — like they’re unprepared. I would like to bring that information to the board’s attention, to work to strengthen the college readiness programs that we already have through feedback from past L.A. Unified graduates. To see where our programs lack and where they need additional support to help students be college-ready.

I can say with confidence that I’ll make sure that they’re heard.

● Read More: Exclusive: Less than half of LAUSD’s Class of 2019 are on track to graduate eligible for California’s public universities

How do you intend to conduct outreach and make sure that — to the best of your ability— you have a sense of what the student body cares about?

I’m fortunate enough to have many resources for that. In L.A. Unified we have a Superintendent’s Student Advisory Council, which includes students from both middle school and high school now. And they’re kind of my advisors as well. I know that I can come to them and have them give me their 100 percent honest opinion about certain topics and certain concepts that I may want to pursue and bring up to the board. There’s also the email for the student board member [studentboardmember@lausd.net], where people can email me their opinions and their concerns and I can always look through that and try to reach out to as many as I can. And of course I have my own peers in my own school and the schools surrounding me that are easily accessible to me.

You’re a high school student. You have homework, exams, college prep. What’s the time commitment of this job, and how do you intend to maintain life balance?

From what Tyler Okeke told me, it takes a lot of dedication, commitment and passion. So I expect it to take a lot of my time as well. But [district officials] always tell me that my education comes first, so they’ve let me know that I don’t have to stay for the whole duration of the meeting. I know it’s going to be difficult having to juggle being a high school senior with all of the academic pressures of your senior year, and all the social pressures of senior year as well, and now this being added on to my plate. But I know that I’m doing this for a reason. I’m not someone who would choose to do something and then not put in 110 percent effort.

(Reporter’s note: An end-of-year meeting on June 18 lasted a staggering eight hours. Typically, school board meetings are around four or five hours.)

What’s some of the best advice you’ve received from a student board member?

The biggest thing that Tyler told me that stuck with me is, “Speak from your heart and do things that you’re passionate about and that you can honestly say you’re proud to do.” I think he did a great job with that in his year, and I can only learn from him. He’s incredible, and he’s a friend now to me. He’s done nothing but support me and guide me through it.

Frances Suavillo with last year’s student board representative, Tyler Okeke. (L.A. Unified)

L.A. Unified board members Jackie Goldberg and Richard Vladovic speak at the June 18 meeting. (Photo: L.A. Unified)

*Updated June 25

L.A. Unified board members passed the 2019-20 budget and accountability plan on Tuesday — but not before acknowledging that they are “unintelligible” documents that provide little insight into specific program and funding changes as the district looks to the next school year.

“None of the documents add up to anything you can count on,” board member Jackie Goldberg said, noting that she’d read “virtually every page” on three different occasions. “We need a new budget document that is useful, not only for us, but all of the public.”

The $7.8 billion operating budget and Local Control and Accountability Plan (LCAP) —a three-year plan updated annually that outlines the district’s goals and actions for improving student outcomes — have to be adopted by July 1, per state law. Because of the looming deadline, board members said they’d approve both documents now and spend this year exploring ways to improve them. The board’s approval came one week after parents blasted district leaders for the documents’ lack of transparency.

Board member Scott Schmerelson cast the sole “no” vote on the budget.

L.A. Unified struggled to get its fiscal house in order this year, receiving threats of a possible fiscal takeover by the county because of its shaky finances. The approved budget now shows L.A. Unified operating in the black for three years — a sharp departure from a March budget update that estimated the district’s ending balance in 2021-22 would fall $749 million short of required reserve levels if new revenues, such as a hoped-for parcel tax, didn’t materialize. Voters resoundingly defeated the tax earlier this month.

‘Voters are tired of you’: A week after parcel tax defeat, LAUSD parents rail at district leaders during 2019-20 budget hearing

Before casting those votes during the marathon eight-hour session, the board also voted 4-3 to sunset the district’s contentious random student search policy by July 2020, following more than an hour of passionate testimony from parents, students and the community. Members approved a resolution as well opposing the California State University system’s recent proposal to add a fourth year of math or quantitative learning to admissions requirements. Speakers backing the resolution said CSU’s proposals would further limit college access to high-needs students.

● Read more: Exclusive: Less than half of LAUSD’s Class of 2019 are on track to graduate eligible for California’s public universities

Board member Richard Vladovic said moving forward, there should be multiple sessions scheduled during the year to parse the upcoming year’s budget. L.A. Unified should “look at the outcomes we want in the district, and then we plan backwards,” he said.

LA School Report reviewed the budget, LCAP and other sources to try and discern what’s changing or staying the same from 2018-19 to 2019-20. Here’s what we know — and don’t know — about what to expect next year for high-needs students, teacher contract promises, lowest-performing schools and parent engagement efforts.

Funding and programs for high-needs students

Some key highlights:

1. Student Equity Needs Index (SENI) 2.0.

The district budget has set aside $262 million in 2019-20 to distribute funding to schools based on their rank in L.A. Unified’s revised Student Equity Needs Index, or “SENI 2.0.” The index considers school type — elementary, middle or high school — and factors such as asthma rates and injuries from gun violence, rather than just academic performance or income levels, when deciding where to channel the most money.

Next year’s SENI 2.0 allotment marks a sizable jump from the $25 million that was appropriated using the updated index in 2018-19. It’s not necessarily new money, however: the district told KPCC last year that it was distributing more than $240 million to schools using its old equity index.

How different factors are weighted in the SENI 2.0 index. (L.A. Unified)

All district schools except early education centers and those for adult education will get funding through SENI, with schools ranking higher on the index receiving more. For example, an elementary school determined to be in the “lowest” SENI rank category could receive up to $386 extra per pupil, while a “highest” rank school could get $725 per pupil.

Breakdown of SENI funding based on school level and rank. (L.A. Unified)

The district’s LCAP confirms that no schools in 2019-20 will receive “less funding” through SENI 2.0 than they did in 2018-19. Schools next year will also have more flexibility over how they spend their SENI funds, so they can better “address locally determined needs” for their most vulnerable students, such as English learners.

2. English learners.

The district will continue to implement its Master Plan, which includes growing its dual-language programs, expanding the state Seal of Biliteracy award to the fifth and eighth grades, and “providing targeted supports for newcomers,” district spokeswoman Barbara Jones wrote in an email. L.A. Unified recently implemented a strategy to develop individualized reclassification plans for English learners, with the hope of switching them to a “Fluent English Proficient” categorization before they enter middle school.

The goal is to have 22 percent of English learners reclassify in 2019-20 — the same goal as in 2018-19. About a quarter of L.A. Unified’s roughly 486,000 students are English learners.

See which schools offer dual language programs here. New programs are marked.

New help for LAUSD’s English learners: Individualized plans seek to boost graduation and reclassification rates

3. Special education students.

It was unclear to LA School Report from the budget and LCAP how programs and services are changing for special education students. A hearing on L.A. Unified’s special education plan and budget— which increased from $994 million to $1.03 billion for 2019-20 — was one of the last items on the agenda for Tuesday’s meeting, and generated no board discussion. The district serves more than 60,000 special-needs students.

Jones said four new schools — Vernon City, San Antonio and Hope elementary schools and Gage Middle School — are joining a pilot program that’s testing “inclusive practices,” which “means that students with disabilities are educated with their non-disabled peers to the maximum extent possible,” she said. The program started in 2014-15 and had 50 school sites participating by 2018-19, according to the LCAP.

January’s teachers contract also called for the creation of a task force to study special education teacher caseloads, though a start date wasn’t included.

4. Foster youth.

A key service for L.A. Unified foster youth, the Foster Youth Achievement Program,” is “not changing” in 2019-20, Jones said— though some advocates say that’s not entirely true.

The program focuses on boosting foster youth’s academic performance, largely through employing foster youth counselors. Jones said “the goal for next year is to provide local, integrated, specialized support services,” and ensure “that our students in foster care continue to be served effectively and consistently.”

The district has more than 7,000 students in foster care. The 2019-20 budget allocated about $15 million toward the program— a slight bump from roughly $14.1 million in 2018-19.

However, at least six state and local advocacy groups, such as Advancement Project California and Children’s Defense Fund — California, claimed at two board meetings this month that the program is in fact being “restructured” in 2019-20 so that counselors initially dedicated to foster youth will now also serve homeless students, youth exiting the juvenile justice system and other at-risk groups at designated school sites. They said this will more than double the number of students assigned to each counselor, from about 70 students to about 150. That data came from calculating the number of foster youth versus counselors in 2018-19 and comparing it to updated caseload breakdown sheets that the district reportedly provided to counselors in May, advocates told LA School Report.

The district will “say they’re trying to do a whole-child approach that’s more integrated at the school site,” Ruth Cusick, an education rights lawyer for Public Counsel, a pro bono law firm that’s also following this development, told LA School Report. “That’s why we’ve shared the unique needs of foster youth and how impactful it has been to have this dedicated team to focus all of their expertise and all of their work for the success” of those students.

● Read more: ESSA Says State Report Cards Must Track How Many Students in Foster Care Are Passing Their Reading & Math Tests and Graduating High School. Only 16 Do

5. Funding from one lawsuit ends — and another is in its last year.

The Reed Investment Schools Program is “discontinued” as of June, according to the LCAP. The program — based on a 2014 settlement — has provided 37 middle schools and high schools across the district (listed here) additional supports to improve staff retention and student outcomes, such as assistant principals, extra counselors, mentor teachers, special education support providers and “unique” professional staff development opportunities.

This staffing has cost L.A. Unified about $26.8 million annually, according to the budget.

In 2019-20, Reed schools will be “receiving SENI 2.0 funding instead of receiving staffing and professional development,” Jones said. So while those positions will no longer be mandated, school leaders will have “flexibility” to utilize that SENI funding to retain staff hired through the Reed program if they choose to do so.

Meanwhile, 50 high-needs “innovation schools” (a list can be found here) will receive their last year of mandated extra funding following a 2015 lawsuit against the district. L.A. Unified has given about $50 million a year to these schools since 2017-18 to support new and expanded programs and services for low-income, English learner and foster students. ACLU of Southern California has noted, however, that only 38 percent of the $50 million allocated in 2018-19 was used. L.A. Unified will reabsorb any money that isn’t spent by June 30, 2020.

6. Miscellaneous and districtwide.

The district is lowering the minimum student enrollment required to receive a middle school assistant principal for counseling services. In 2019-20, middle schools with 700 or more students enrolled will get that assistant principal, compared to the 800-student threshold in 2018-19. There is no change at the elementary and high school levels.

Arts programs, such as dance, general music and film, also appear to be unchanged going into 2019-20. See the programs offered at each L.A. Unified school here.

Teacher contract promises

The latest teachers contract, which was signed after the January strike and runs through 2021-22, is fully covered in the 2019-20 budget. Here are the additions expected:

● Average class sizes in grades 4 through 12 will be reduced by one student, bringing them back down to 2014-17 teachers contract levels. Average class sizes will be further reduced by an additional two students at 75 “targeted high needs” elementary schools and 15 middle schools. English and math classes in middle and high schools are also now capped at 39 students, per the contract. The cap pre-strike was 46 students, the teachers union has said.

● 150 new nurse positions. Where these nurses are placed will depend, for example, on how many students at a given school have diabetes or other “health-related issues,” Jones said. She added that campuses with athletic teams may also qualify for a school nurse based on the programs’ size.

● 41 new library positions in secondary schools. There won’t be a full-time librarian at every secondary school with a library this year, but the goal is to have one in each by the start of the 2020-21 year, Jones said.

● 17 new counselor positions. Their placements will be determined to “maintain a secondary school counseling services ratio of 500:1,” Jones said.

A list of specific school sites receiving these support staff does not appear available yet.

There are no raises scheduled for 2019-20. Under the contract, teachers received a 3 percent raise retroactive to 2017-18 and another 3 percent in 2018-19.

● Read more: With High School Counselors Badly Outnumbered, Innovative Nonprofit Steps In to Offer Smart College Advising to Low-Income Students Across the Country

● Read more: A look into the LAUSD, UTLA contract deal ending the 6-day teacher strike

Supports for lowest-performing schools

The district states in its LCAP that the following resources are being provided this summer and during the 2019-20 school year for “Comprehensive Support & Improvement (CSI)” schools — the 110 schools within L.A. Unified boundaries that were identified by the state early this year as struggling to adequately serve students.

1. Summer programs. The district is offering a four-week program that includes “focused academic intervention in English Language Arts or mathematics for academically at­-risk students in grades K­-8,” according to the LCAP. There is also a 24-day summer program for high schoolers running currently from June 19 to July 24 to “recover credits and make progress toward graduation.”

More information is available here and here.

2. Title I Intervention Program. School sites will receive per pupil funding from the federal program that benefits high-poverty schools, allowing them flexibility to focus on math, English language arts or credit recovery based on students’ individual needs.
3. Social-emotional learning. L.A. Unified advisors or staff will identify and grow “age-appropriate” programs that —among other things — help students manage their emotions, establish positive relationships and set goals.

Of the 110 identified schools, 88 are district schools and 22 are charters. You can search for your school here or within this EdSource database.

For the first time in six years, California names its lowest-performing schools — & here are the 110 district and charter schools in LAUSD that require intervention

Parent engagement efforts

Responding to a question about parent frustration over the current budget and LCAP, Jones said the district has “committed to … a more transparent process for the next school year.” She added later that Superintendent Beutner plans to meet with central parent committees such as the District English Learner Advisory Committee and Parent Advisory Committee quarterly “at a minimum” in 2019-20.

He’s met with them three times since becoming superintendent in May 2018, she noted.

For parents interested in getting more involved, 2019-20 also marks the first full year that parents can volunteer at a school without paying a $56 fee for fingerprinting and background checks after the board voted to waive the fee last November. More information available here.

● Read more: LAUSD ends fees for parent volunteers

*This article was updated on June 24 to clarify that while next year’s SENI 2.0 allotment marks a sizable jump from the $25 million appropriated in 2018-19, the district had already been giving comparable funding to schools using its old equity index. Scott Schmerelson’s “no” vote was also added.

*This article was updated on June 25 to add more information on advocates’ concerns about the Foster Youth Achievement Program, a quote from Public Counsel’s Ruth Cusick and the annual cost of the Reed Investment Schools Program.

Parent Luz Maria Montoya addresses the L.A. Unified school board on Tuesday. (L.A. Unified)

*Updated June 17

Parents blasted L.A. Unified officials at a school board hearing this week — one even bursting into tears — offering an angry glimpse into the fractured trust between the community and the district just one week after voters overwhelmingly rejected a new parcel tax.

Many of the more than 20 speakers at Tuesday’s four-hour session expressed ongoing frustration with the ambiguity of L.A. Unified’s $7.8 billion operating budget and Local Control Accountability Plan (LCAP), a three-year plan updated annually that outlines the district’s goals and actions for improving student outcomes. Tuesday’s meeting was the first since L.A. Unified’s bid for a $500 million-a-year “Measure EE” parcel tax failed at the polls, and was also the first time the finalized 2019-20 budget and the LCAP were formally presented to the public. The board will vote on both next Tuesday.

“All of the voters are tired of you,” parent Luz Maria Montoya said in Spanish. “We don’t know what work you are doing.”

Some parents said district documents don’t clearly explain changes to student programs and services for next year. Others added that there isn’t transparency or robust “monitoring” of how L.A. Unified’s expenditures, such as professional development and training for teachers and principals, yield actual results for students. Montoya, for example, called district services for English learners and special education students “an embarrassment.” A few also accused L.A. Unified officials and principals of keeping parents out of budget and policy discussions — treating them “as sheeps, as herds,” as one speaker said— rather than welcoming them to the table as a partner.

“We have a lot of barriers” to knowing what’s going on, said parent María Daisy Ortíz, who addressed the board in Spanish. “We want to work with you, not against you. But respect us. … No one returns the wasted time to our children.”

Parent María Daisy Ortíz waves around district documents during Tuesday’s school board hearing on the budget and LCAP.

Ortíz had brought parts of the 112-page LCAP plan with her, noting that much of it feels like a “copy and paste” job. She waved the papers in the air, her voice rising. “Please don’t deceive us with false data that are doctored, because truly, that is why Measure EE did not pass,” she said.

Juanita Garcia, a grandmother of three children with special needs, broke into tears when recounting the difficulty she’s had getting help and answers from the district after one of them was injured in January. “Up to today I have not received a report,” she said in Spanish. “Is that what we call accountability and responsibility?”

District 4 Board Member Nick Melvoin addressed the lack of public trust at Tuesday’s meeting, peppering in some concerns of his own.

“I’ve asked ad nauseum for a document showing changes [to programs or investments] and have not received anything for months,” Melvoin said. “We’re not showing how this budget reflects our shared values or strategies for improving outcomes.”

Melvoin also acknowledged Tuesday that he didn’t think the budget presentation helped quell ongoing skepticism of “how we can balance our budget every year and yet cry poverty.” Melvoin’s comment was underscored by the 2019-20 budget showing the district operating in the black for the next three years despite ongoing threats beginning late last summer that deficit spending could force a county fiscal takeover if L.A. Unified began dipping into mandated reserves.

In addition to the frustrated comments of parents during the public hearing, two district-wide parent advisory groups — the District English Learner Advisory Committee and Parent Advisory Committee — offered more formal feedback to the board on the LCAP’s six goals. They are: 100 percent graduation, proficiency for all, 100 percent attendance, parent, community and student engagement, ensuring school safety and basic services.

Some of the key suggestions included:

● Having a strategic plan for how English learners will catch up on instruction time lost during January’s six-day teacher strike.

● More counselor focus on A-G requirements, which students need to meet to be eligible to apply to the state’s public four-year universities.

Exclusive: Less than half of LAUSD’s Class of 2019 are on track to graduate eligible for California’s public universities

● Attendance incentives that celebrate not only students with the highest attendance, but those who are “most improved.” “The kids at the end of the [attendance] spectrum, we really need to boost them up,” Parent Advisory Committee chair Paul Robak said.

● Making parent workshops accessible via Skype to boost access.

Superintendent Austin Beutner agreed with parents Tuesday that, “We have to become better program evaluators … focused on what the students’ achievement is in the schools.” His office sent out a statement during the meeting calling for “a new approach” to the LCAP.

In response to a question from LA School Report on why the parent committee presentations and public comment were scheduled only a week before the budget vote, a district spokeswoman said in an email that the two parent advisory committees held 11 total meetings “from January to June, and comments from those meetings were shared with the Superintendent a month ago. Feedback from [both] was incorporated in the LCAP, specifically the continuation of desired programs and the increase in school site autonomy and staffing.”

While parents have voiced concerns about transparency, accountability and parent engagement for years, the 2019 teacher strike and resounding parcel tax defeat could signal that the district and the board need to pay closer attention to stakeholders’ concerns as they campaign for more investment in the schools. The parcel tax’s demise, as observers have noted, was a reminder that the outpouring of support during January’s teacher strike is not unconditional — especially when it comes to money.

Los Angeles voters roundly defeat parcel tax, leaving LAUSD on shaky financial footing

Even without the tax revenue, the latest budget shows sufficient revenues for the next three years. That’s a sharp departure from a March budget update that projected the district’s ending balance would fall $749 million short of required reserve levels by 2021-22 if voters didn’t approve the tax. The district now estimates having a $10.5 million surplus in 2022. School officials said they managed that swing in their projections without the parcel tax money after finalizing some health care savings, receiving a state waiver that excuses L.A. Unified from paying penalties for its administrator-teacher ratio and enacting other budget realignments.

By projecting that it won’t dip into its mandated reserve in the next three years, L.A. Unified no longer appears to be under direct threat of a county takeover. Fiscal experts installed in January by the county Office of Education will stay with the district in an advisory-only role until at least December, Chief Financial Officer Scott Price told the board Tuesday.

Chief Financial Officer Scott Price presents the 2019-20 budget to the board.

But it’s not an all-clear. L.A. Unified still projects it will continue spending about $500 million more a year than it takes in. On top of signing a teacher contract in January that it can’t fully afford, it also faces growing pension contribution costs and declining enrollment — an estimated 14,656 fewer students next year — that lowers its state funding.

Down the line, upcoming health care and labor contracts could increase spending and push 2021-22 budget projections back into the red, a district spokeswoman confirmed in an email to LA School Report Wednesday.

At Tuesday’s meeting, President Mónica García said she “loved” the idea of “a weekly or monthly budget conversation so that more people understand the full picture.” Newly elected member Jackie Goldberg also suggested compiling public feedback on different parts of the budget in the months leading up to the final version.

When Goldberg served on the board three decades ago, members would “pick a different topic [within the budget] each month in March, April and May and invite the public — all our labor partners, everybody — to come and say, ‘What you’re doing with the budget is this,’ or, ‘We’d rather you do that,’” Goldberg said. “That helped encourage people to feel like there was much more transparency.”

Speaker Juan Godinez hopes any progress forward will be sincere.

“If we are partners, let’s have parent engagement because the district wants it,” he said. “Not because a law tells you to have it.”

This story was updated on June 17 to correct the misspelling of Nick Melvoin’s name.

Shockwaves reverberated through the Los Angeles education community last month when the LA County District Attorney filed charges against LA Unified school board President Ref Rodriguez alleging he engaged in political money laundering during his election two years ago.

New allegations were revealed Monday when the Los Angeles Times published a report saying that the charter school network that Rodriguez co-founded, Partnership to Uplift Communities, had filed a conflict of interest complaint against Rodriguez saying he wrongly authorized $285,000 in payments to a nonprofit organization he led.

The new allegations come as Rodriguez is facing increasing pressure to resign his board position. Rodriguez stepped down last month from his role as board president, but he remains a voting member of the board. If he resigns, it would deal a blow to the pro-reform majority that was achieved with the board elections this spring.

Let’s review what Rodriguez is facing and what comes next.

1. RECAP OF LAST MONTH’S CRIMINAL CHARGES

Following a whistleblower complaint and investigation by the City Ethics Commission, the District Attorney’s Office filed charges on Sept. 13, including three felony counts of perjury, procuring and offering a false or forged instrument, and conspiracy to commit assumed name contribution, and 25 misdemeanor counts of assumed name contribution, against Rodriguez. Prosecutors say Rodriguez reimbursed 25 campaign donors — most of whom were family and friends — $25,000 of his own money. But Rodriguez signed campaign finance documents under penalties of perjury stating that those donors had given him the money.

Rodriguez’s cousin, Elizabeth Tinajero Melendrez, was also charged in the scheme. The Los Angeles Times reported that she resigned from her position as a senior manager at PUC on Friday.

The case has puzzled campaign finance experts because there is no limit to what a candidate can give to his own campaign. Some observers say Rodriguez likely wanted to give the appearance that his campaign had grassroots support early on in the election. Many of the donors were janitors and workers at PUC, the charter school network Rodriguez co-founded. KPPC published a report during the 2015 election noting how janitors and other low-level workers were donating $1,100 to Rodriguez’s campaign. At the time Rodriguez said the donors would not be reimbursed.

The ethics commission staff found that nearly half of the campaign contributions made over a 22-day period in December 2014 were allegedly fraudulent because Melendrez and Rodriguez reimbursed them. The findings were referred to the District Attorney’s Office, and that led to the filing of criminal charges against both defendants.

Prosecutors said in December 2014 Rodriguez cashed out a $26,000 business investment and then gave that money to Melendrez with instructions to reimburse 25 campaign donors.

2. LAUSD DECLINES TO REVEAL IF IT IS CONDUCTING AN INVESTIGATION 

In response to a Public Records Act request filed by LA School Report for any communications the district has received from the District Attorney’s Office about the case, including any subpoenas or search warrants, LA Unified’s legal team denied the request citing an exemption due to “records of a confidential ongoing investigation.” The district has not responded to follow-up questions about whether the district is conducting its own investigation.

Rodriguez has declined to speak publicly about the charges. In a statement after the charges were filed, Rodriguez said he had been working with the Ethics Commission for two years to “resolve these issues.”

Rodriguez has not denied the allegations. In a statement, his lawyer, Daniel Nixon, said: “As I understand it, candidates fund their campaigns often. I think it’s a question of simply the details, the nuances, concerning how that takes place.”

3. CHARTER GROUP FILES A COMPLAINT

In a separate case, reported Monday in the Los Angeles Times, Partnership to Uplift Communities filed a complaint Friday with the state’s Fair Political Practices Commission alleging that Rodriguez authorized $285,000 in payments to a nonprofit organization he ran.

There is little or no evidence that the charter group received any services, and PUC’s records indicate that Rodriguez both authorized and signed the checks. He was also serving as PUC’s chief financial officer during much of the period in which the checks were being written, according to the LA Times. 

The FPPC said it cannot release the complaint until five days after it has received it per its regulations.

A spokeswoman for PUC declined to release the complaint but sent a statement from its board chairman, Manuel Ponce Jr.

“Due to the ongoing investigations, PUC Schools has no comment at this time about the Fair Political Practices Commission filing. Our focus on our amazing families, teachers and staff is steadfast, as is our commitment to providing all of our students with the quality public education they deserve,” the statement said.

Netflix CEO Reed Hastings, who has given millions to elect charter school supporters to the state Legislature and local school boards, donated $75,000 to a legal defense fund that Rodriguez set up, KPPC reported Tuesday.

4. RODRIGUEZ IS EXPECTED AT COURT NEXT TUESDAY

Rodriguez is scheduled to appear in court on Tuesday to be arraigned. He has not yet entered a plea.

Rodriguez briefly appeared in court on the day the charges were filed but was released on his own recognizance. He is expected to appear Tuesday with his attorney.

5. NO COMMENT FROM RODRIGUEZ AT TUESDAY’S SCHOOL BOARD MEETING 

All eyes were on Tuesday’s school board committee meeting at Fairfax High School. Rodriguez attended but declined to speak to reporters. Last month, when Rodriguez announced he was resigning as board president, it was just before a committee meeting began. He announced it on both his Twitter and Facebook pages.

At Tuesday’s meeting, the four other board members present each declined to comment on the charges against Rodriguez. Two board members, Richard Vladovic and George McKenna, did not attend, after vowing last week to boycott the meeting because they felt removed from decision-making. They did not respond to requests for comment about Rodriguez.

The meeting ended just after 5 p.m., and while seven speakers had signed up to address the board during public comment, by the time it came to speak, only about 10 people were left in the audience — but none of the speakers.

6. NO RECALL PETITION HAS BEEN FILED

United Teachers Los Angeles, the local teachers union, has been a vocal critic of Rodriguez’s decision to remain on the board. It has called on him to step down.

But so far no recall petitions have been filed against Rodriguez, according to the City Clerk’s Office.

A recall petition must receive signatures from 15 percent of the registered voters in a district. For District 5 — which includes Highland Park and Eagle Rock and the cities of Huntington Park, Vernon, and Maywood — that would be about 45,000 signatures. The signatures must be gathered within 120 days.

The signatures must be verified and if determined sufficient, a recall election will be held.

Mike Szymanski contributed to this report.

*This article now includes updates from Tuesday’s committee meeting.

When board members heard Tuesday that the number of students who have left LA Unified schools was even worse than they’d been told, they wanted to know what was being done.

Here’s what they heard:
• launching the unified enrollment system
• offering a broader range of school options
• reducing absences.

And here is what board members have proposed:
• increase achievement at district schools
• redouble student recovery efforts 
• ensure that students in pre-kindergarten classes remain in district schools.

“It’s disheartening,” Chief Financial Officer Scott Price said, who reported Tuesday to the board on the data from “norm day,” the snapshot of district attendance that gives the official student count. “It’s like losing a small school district every year.”

He said the school district is down 450 students more than his office reported last week.

The final norm day for the district on Oct. 9 showed a 2.55 percent decline from last year, worse than both the 2.1 percent drop that had been projected for the year and the 2.51 percent drop that was reported in September.

In total, there are 13,093 fewer students than last year, Price said.

“Besides asking people to have more children and solving the housing crisis, what can we be doing?” asked board member Nick Melvoin.

“The goal is increased achievement. That will lead to increased enrollment,” he added.

Enrollment declines are higher on the west side, probably due to high housing costs, and “there is a larger decline in Local District East, which may have something to do with our national politics,” Price said, referring to presidential policies on immigrants and sanctuary communities.

The new unified enrollment system will help, district officials said.

“A game changer is our unified enrollment. That levels the playing field, and all parents now have access to information and can navigate enrolling their child into the best programs,” said Vivian Ekchian, who is acting superintendent while Michelle King is on medical leave. “Every local district has planted seeds, and I expect when people see the increase of the variety of programs we will change the enrollment decline to an enrollment increase.”

Already 14,000 visitors have checked out the unified enrollment system since it launched last week and 9,000 have enrolled, Ekchian said, adding that parents can enroll through Nov. 9. The unified enrollment system does not include independent charter schools as options.

“There are programs you have never even heard about,” said Ekchian, listing a dual-language Korean-English program in pre-kindergarten, all-girls and all-boys schools, a firefighter academy, and a robotics school.

Another drain on district enrollment is the number of families moving to independent charter schools, which are estimated to be growing by 4,000 students this year. Charters are publicly funded schools, but most of the state funding their receive bypasses the district.

Melvoin called for more transparency to show which schools are growing and which are losing students. He noted that this new data could help district schools plan better.

Melvoin also asked for an update from the LA Unified Advisory Task Force that the superintendent put together, as they are exploring ways to lower chronic absences and increase attendance.

The school district gets allotted money based on overall enrollment and the average daily attendance of each student.

Ekchian said the district staff looks at “enrollment and daily attendance together and are working on strategies to increase both every day.” One of those ways is to explain to parents how the district loses money every time a student doesn’t show up for school.

“What we will do now is see where the bright spots are and where attendance has risen and look at those programs and make sure we can duplicate those kinds of activities,” Price said. “We are working closely with the superintendent so we can flag those areas.”

UTLA protest at 52nd Street Elementary. (UTLA)

LA Unified urgently needs a sit-down with union representatives to make sure everyone is on the same page about the budget before the district falls off a fiscal “cliff,” longtime school board member Richard Vladovic said at Tuesday’s board meeting.

“Our labor partners see the budget differently from the way we do, and I would like to see the chief financial officer talk to our labor partners. Because when I talk to labor partners, and they may be right, they say we have more money than we say we have or we don’t spend it correctly,” said Vladovic, who celebrated 50 years in education this year and is serving his third term on the board.

“We are all one family, and if we don’t do this, we will all crash together,” Vladovic said. “This is a way to save the district.”

Acting superintendent Vivian Ekchian agreed to work on getting a meeting arranged for next week.

The call for a meeting came on the eve of protests held Wednesday at more than two dozen schools by United Teachers Los Angeles, according to pictures posted on the UTLA Twitter account with the hashtag #UTLAPicket4Power. Wednesday and Thursday are also bargaining negotiation days, according to the teacher union.

The school board passed a $7.5 billion budget for the 2017-18 school year, but those costs, combined with other long-term expenses like pension contributions, threaten the district’s solvency. By the 2019-20 school year, the district faces a $422 million deficit.

Richard Vladovic asks for an information session with labor partners.

Vladovic said the information session that he seeks could also include charter advocates, who often come to board meetings with different interpretations of the budget.

“The bottom line is, I would like to see some dialogue that is honest and intense,” Vladovic said. “I hate it when people come in and refute what we say or you say. Let’s all get together and get figures straight and march together, or we will all fall off this cliff.”

Board President Mónica García asked Ekchian if she could “help build the platform that all would understand together.”

Ekchian said she looks forward to doing it within the next week.

“We need to sit down and talk, not in negotiation, just talk,” Vladovic said. “We need to work together to save this place.”

“I look forward to it,” Ekchian responded.

“You cannot allow ‘yes but’ in those conversations,” Vladovic added.

“Understood!” said Ekchian.

School board and staff wore their college shirts at Tuesday’s meeting.

It was college appreciation day Tuesday at the LA Unified school board, so all the board members wore their school shirts. But they may as well have worn their football jerseys because it erupted into a verbal brawl.

In a few seemingly innocuous votes involving committee meetings, two board members not part of the new pro-reform majority let loose their frustrations.

“I don’t feel like it’s worth coming to the meetings anymore, it’s like talking to the air,” said longtime board member Richard Vladovic before the final votes were cast. “We are being railroaded. It’s uncomfortable coming to the meetings because my votes don’t count. You got four votes on everything, and I just don’t agree.”

The disagreements prolonged the meeting by more than an hour and centered on who would represent the district on a state board and whether committees should give way to shorter-term ad hoc groups. But at their heart they were about the 4-3 split and the voice of the minority members on the seven-member board.

The longest exchanges were between Vladovic and Mónica García, who took over as board president after Ref Rodriguez relinquished the post last month because he is facing felony campaign violations. Vladovic ran unsuccessfully against García for the post, and both have served as president before. Since last spring’s election of two pro-reform board members, Vladovic and board members George McKenna and Scott Schmerelson are for the first time in the minority.

“I’m just concerned where the district is going,” McKenna said. “Working together takes leadership, and that does not mean dictatorship.”

Richard Vladovic expressed his frustration.

The heated argument was over newcomer Kelly Gonez being elected to the state California School Boards Association Board of Directors as well as the Council of Great City Schools, a national organization of the largest urban public schools that deals with federal education issues.

“I’ll be honest and kind of blunt, but I don’t know what she’s going to advocate for,” McKenna said. “I know there’s a 4-3 majority for broader expansion of charter schools, and I’m not an enemy of charter schools, but I’m not an advocate, and if someone goes there as a representative of the board I want to know what they’ll represent.” The four members of the majority were elected with the backing of charter school supporters.

Gonez assured McKenna that she could multi-task and has worked since age 16, often holding three jobs at a time. She said she would “make it a priority to attend all meetings and give written and oral updates.” She also said she wanted to promote the UTLA teacher union goal of getting an allocation of $20,000 per student by 2020. (California ranks 22nd in per pupil spending at $11,330 in 2016.) “I am excited to take on the work,” she said, vowing to “solicit feedback and reflect the entirety of the board.”

Schmerelson and McKenna joined Vladovic in voting against her.

“I could have told you that,” Vladovic said when she won the 4-3 vote. “I feel disenfranchised and that we are not part of this. You go on doing what you’re going to do, this isn’t cool.”

García reminded Vladovic of the days when she was on the losing end of 6-1 and 5-2 votes since she first got elected in 2006. “I welcome this conversation, and these feelings are real and political change is rough,” García said. “I have always said that being on this board is like a forced marriage.”

After the meeting, García noted that she wanted her fellow board members to have all the information they need to do their jobs, but that no predetermined backroom deals were being made by the majority.

She also said that it’s not necessarily the board president’s responsibility to make everyone feel good. “Vulnerability is good and expressing opinions and feelings informs the whole, and as board president I have to conduct the meetings and make sure things go smoothly.”

Garcia added, “Absent of the alignment perspective of certain board members, I have the responsibility to do our work and make sure the board members have the information they need to do our work.”

McKenna was surprised that the next Committee of the Whole meeting was being planned at Fairfax High School next week, to spread meetings around throughout the district. “I had something planned here (at the Beaudry headquarters), and now we’re bounding all over. How much more work will we get done? You make us go and move and want the rest of us to follow you around. I don’t follow.”

Mónica García reacts to board members’ concerns.

Vladovic and McKenna said they wouldn’t attend the Committee of the Whole meetings, which they are not required to do, because they feel so far removed.

Melvoin tried to play mediator and pointed out that 90 percent of the votes the board takes are unanimous and on consent.

Vladovic shot that down and said, “Those are marshmallow issues, and that’s the way I feel and I also feel my input is not valued.”

Michael Trujillo, who worked on Vladovic’s three campaigns and was his spokesman during Vladovic’s two years as board president, said Vladovic cares about the process of the board.

“Dr. Vladovic cares about ensuring best practices to our students and he knows the value of committees,” said Trujillo, who also worked on Gonez’s and Melvoin’s campaigns. “This board won’t always be unanimous, but it is good to have a healthy debate about issues when it involves children’s educations.”

Late Tuesday night, García said the school district was preparing to issue a statement about the board moving to “continue in a positive direction for all our children” that would be based in part on Tuesday’s “robust” discussion.

Mónica García just after she was named board president.

In a vote that fell along the reform and labor lines, Mónica García on Tuesday became the new president of the LA Unified school board.

She named Nick Melvoin to the vice president’s position. Melvoin joined the board in July after defeating the former board president in May’s general election.

She also confirmed that she will be stepping down as of Saturday from her part-time job at the Los Angeles County Probation Department.

“I am honored. Thank you, fellow board members. Let’s continue on our goal toward 100 percent graduation and putting kids first,” she said after taking the center seat on the horseshoe at the Beaudry headquarters auditorium.

Read García’s full statement and comments from some other board members, Superintendent Michelle King, union leaders, present and past Los Angeles mayors, and other community members.

García, 49, replaces Ref Rodriguez, who served less than three months in the president’s role. He stepped down last week after being charged with criminal election fraud but remains on the board.

There were three speakers in the public comment section before the vote, and each asked that Rodriguez recuse himself from Tuesday’s vote. But he voted with the reform majority to secure García’s election.

Monica Garcia tweeted out this photo with vice president Nick Melvoin.

With no debate and no speeches, García beat Richard Vladovic 4-3. Both have served as past presidents. García is already the longest-serving board president in the district, having served six years in the leadership role since her election to the board in 2006.

Tuesday’s balloting replicated the pro-reform vote in July when García, Melvoin, and newly elected Kelly Gonez voted for Rodriguez while board members George McKenna and Scott Schmerelson voted for Vladovic.

In an odd mistake, Schmerelson first said he was nominating “Dr. Rodriguez,” which elicited gasps of surprise from the audience, but he quickly changed it to “Dr. Vladovic” and said, “the other doctor, I was distracted.”

After the vote, Vladovic said in a private interview that he had a speech planned to advocate for himself, but no one asked for any speeches before the vote was taken and he didn’t think he should request speeches.

“I think that we should serve children first, and I had some notes, but I will give my thoughts at a future Committee of the Whole meeting,” Vladovic said. “I think we have an obligation to rehabilitate failing schools. We have given charters full run, now we need to make policy for our own schools. We need a retreat to define our roles as school board members.”

Garcia moves to the middle spot shortly after being voted in as president.

UTLA Vice President Cecily Myart-Cruz was one of three speakers in public comment. She called for Rodriguez to leave the board.

“This was clearly a political agenda, and it will be business as usual,” said Myart-Cruz, who noted that when García was president in the past, she didn’t allow labor reports at school board meetings. They were a regular feature of former board President Steve Zimmer’s tenure, but Rodriguez removed them as part of his “Kids First” agenda.

“This charter reform majority is really just putting themselves first,” Myart-Cruz said.

Carl Petersen, who ran unsuccessfully against García in last spring’s election, spoke about how the allegations against Rodriguez were known and the board should have vetted him better before making him president.

“Do not make the same mistake, Mónica García is his political ally,” Petersen said. “This is not children first.”

Another speaker was a special education teacher from Buchanan Street Elementary School in Highland Park in Rodriguez’s district. Karla Griego also called for him to resign and said, “If you truly respect the community, then do the right thing.” She said Rodriguez visited their school in the past year and promised to help them get a play structure but that his office still hasn’t helped them.

The school board presidency lasts one year, then the board votes for the position again. Unless there is a vacancy, this school board will serve together until 2020.

The District 2 board member who represents most of the downtown area and East Los Angeles would replace Ref Rodriguez, who remains on the board but stepped down Tuesday as board president after being charged with criminal election fraud. At a special meeting this coming Tuesday, the school board plans to vote in a new president.

In a text Friday afternoon, García swept away the two factors that had seemed to stand in the way of a third round as president: her previous statements saying she didn’t want the position, and her part-time position at the county.

García said she is “open and willing” to serve in any capacity and she plans to leave her job at the Los Angeles County Probation Department. García is currently the only part-time member of the school board. In her previous two times as president, she was a full-time board member. She first switched to part time in 2013 when she took the county job working under Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina.

“I will be separating from my service at LA County to serve full time on the board,” said García, who was first elected in 2006 and now faces term limits which will prevent her from running again. “During my time there, I have helped find alternative solutions to youth incarceration. I saw firsthand what failure in our schools can lead to and why we must do more.”

The other six school board members serve full-time. School board members recently received a hefty raise from the independent Board of Education Compensation Review Committee, which meets every five years, boosting their annual full-time pay to $125,000 from $45,000.

García had been making $26,347 as a part-time board member, which recently was increased to $50,000, plus $110,892 from her county probation job.

Until Friday, García had maintained she didn’t want to be president again, allowing “new blood” to lead the board. She served in a frustrating position in the past with Tamar Galatzan when they were at the losing end of a 5-2 split on the board. But with last spring’s election, the new board tilts 4-3 in favor of those in the “pro-reform” camp, and García sees a new energy on the board.

“Yes, I am open and willing to do what I can to serve the board and our district,” García said in the text Friday. “We must continue our work of ending illiteracy, creating workforce pathways and skills, closing gaps, and of course increasing graduation, all while strengthening relationships with our students, families, and employees.”

Rodriguez resigned from the top spot after running only two meetings. He had appointed García as his vice president, and she ran the Committee of the Whole meeting on Tuesday, when Rodriguez announced on social media that he was stepping down from the presidency.

Board rules state, “Each year, the newly elected President of the Board of Education shall appoint a Vice President to the Board to serve as President Pro Tempore,” and “The President Pro Tempore shall possess the powers and perform the duties of the President at that meeting.” The board has to decide the next step and has scheduled a special meeting on Tuesday.

Before Rodriguez’s election in June, García and newly elected board member Nick Melvoin had indicated that they would serve if the majority of the board wanted them to but said someone else should take the role.  Melvoin recently said, “While it would be a privilege to serve as the president of the Board of Education, my focus right now is on Board District 4 and implementing some of the district-wide reforms I campaigned on.”

But with the criminal charges against Rodriguez, the landscape quickly changed.

The other board members haven’t responded specifically to questions about their interest in the position or who they would be supporting. But here’s a quick look at the other board members and reasons why they either would or would not be likely winners of a vote for president:

GEORGE McKENNA. At 77, the District 1 board member is the oldest school board member and commands a lot of respect among the rest of the board because of his past history as a celebrated school principal.

PROS: He has run the Committee of the Whole for years as chairman and served as vice president of the school board under Steve Zimmer, who lost to Melvoin in May’s election.

CONS: He is known for long and opinionated speeches during meetings that have been more combative rather than collaborative, and he is in the minority of board members who have had union backing.

SCOTT SCHMERELSON. A former principal who represents a majority of the San Fernando Valley, he unseated a pro-reform candidate and has been a vocal critic of charter schools.

PROS: He has strong teacher support, speaks Spanish fluently, and has remained supportive of the district’s staff and their decisions.

CONS: He strongly supported the opponents of the two newest board members, and he has criticized the entire board in the past as being “a mean group of people.” He has also never expressed interest in the top spot.

NICK MELVOIN. Personable, young, and a former teacher, Melvoin beat a popular past president, Steve Zimmer, for his West Los Angeles seat.

PROS: He isn’t afraid to greet and negotiate with those who may disagree with him, and he has tirelessly visited schools.

CONS: He has been a vocal critic of the district, turning off teachers and labor leaders. And he is the first to admit that he has a huge learning curve to be on the school board, much less being president of it.

KELLY GONEZ. Another newcomer to the board, she is establishing herself as a board member who isn’t afraid to get into the weeds over policy issues.

PROS: A teacher and a Latina, she can parlay her east San Fernando Valley support to the entire district.

CONS: She has yet to ignite much of a spark in her short time on the board, and recently couldn’t even get a second to allow for discussion of one of her amendments that she offered as a compromise.

RICHARD VLADOVIC. Celebrating his 50th year in education this year, Vladovic has served in the past as the board president. He has a very different philosophy of how a board should work with a superintendent and has stressed that he would discourage board members from making too many resolutions that dictate her job.

PROS: It is his last term and he has little to gain from grandstanding in the position. He has had experience dealing with labor negotiations, and his top priority is lobbying the federal and state governments for the district’s fair share of money.

CONS: He is at the short end of the bloc vote when it comes to being skeptical of the proliferation of charter schools in the district.

The vote for the next board president must be decided on by the full school board and will allow for public comment. The meeting will be held at 1 p.m. Tuesday and will be broadcast live.

Rodriguez posted a statement on his Twitter and Facebook pages at the beginning of a committee meeting at district headquarters announcing he resigned. He will remain on the school board representing District 5, which includes Highland Park and Eagle Rock and the cities of Huntington Park, Vernon, and Maywood.

I am committed to the Kids First agenda, and have decided to step aside as Board President, so this Board can remain focused on the work. pic.twitter.com/vKCDbZimPT

— Dr. Ref Rodriguez (@DrRefRodriguez) September 19, 2017

//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js

Rodriguez was elected president by his board colleagues in July following the election this spring that won a pro-reform majority on the board.

“When I was elected Board President, I committed to highlighting the Kids First agenda for L.A. Unified. I remain committed to putting kids first, and so, in order to allow the Board to remain focused on the hard work ahead of us, I have decided to step aside as Board President,” the statement said. “I do not want to serve as a distraction to my colleagues, or to any of the other dedicated teachers, principals, and employees who do the hard work of educating students every day. I have always been driven by my passion to give all kids, but especially those with backgrounds similar to mine, a chance at a brighter future, and I believe this decision will help us continue doing exactly that.”

The charges stem from Rodriguez’s successful bid for school board in 2015. LA County District Attorney Jackie Lacey charged Rodriguez with three felony charges of conspiracy, perjury, and procuring and offering a false or forged instrument.

• Read more: 10 things to know about the charges against Board President Ref Rodriguez

According to board rules, Mónica García, who was appointed vice president, will serve as board president amid Rodriguez’s resignation. She served as chair of the Committee of the Whole meeting Tuesday.

Through a spokeswoman, Rodriguez declined an interview request.

Rodriguez appeared in court last week but did not enter a plea. He has been released on his own recognizance and is due in court on Oct. 24.

In a statement released last week, Rodriguez said he had been working with the LA Ethics Commission for more than two years to resolve the issues.

An Ethics Commission investigation found that Rodriguez allegedly reimbursed campaign donors — most of whom were family and friends — with nearly $25,000 of his own money. Rodriguez’s cousin, Elizabeth Tinajero Melendrez, was also charged. The charges also include 25 misdemeanor counts of assumed name contribution.

Rodriguez’s first action as school board president was to author a resolution calling for a “Kids First” agenda for the board, which included installing a Kids Help Desk at school board meetings and having students speak at the beginning of board meetings, replacing the traditional union reports. On Tuesday at the Committee of the Whole, labor partners gave their unions reports.

Board members Ref Rodriguez, left, and Scott Schmerelson, right, with special guests at last Tuesday’s board meeting.

This Tuesday, the school board will meet in a non-voting session, called the Committee of the Whole. It will be the first meeting of the board since last week’s revelations of felony charges against school board President Ref Rodriguez.

That news came just after last Tuesday’s board meeting, the second that Rodriguez presided over as president — and which he held to a tight four hours.

At the meeting, which started off with a surprise announcement from Superintendent Michelle King on the district’s new record graduation rate, a budget report was given that reminded board members of the ongoing “structural deficit.”

Other issues covered included chronic absenteeism rates and charter school reauthorization — including a restructuring of Celerity schools, which are under federal investigation.

Some good budget news came up from a report by Chief Financial Officer Scott Price including updates in the previous budget report. A hiring freeze that was held last year saved $37 million, and $79 million was saved due to 30 percent cuts in staff reductions.

Also, Price reported:

• Just two weeks prior there had been a 4.66 percent reserve in the budget, which is now a 9.6 percent reserve.
• Liabilities were set aside in the amount of $25 million, but they didn’t need to spend it.
• A $50 million cafeteria deficit was resolved.
• There was a $7 million decrease in power utility costs because the weather has been better and required less air conditioning.

Yet, even with the improvements, the longterm debts of the district, including health benefits, special education costs, and other fixed costs will continue to drain the budget. As noted in years past, the structural deficit still exists and there could be a big budget deficit looming in the 2018-19 school year, Price said. So far, a $164 million surplus was applied, reducing the need for carryover funds from $250 million to a little more than $100 million, he said.

Board member Nick Melvoin called for more transparency and understanding of the budget, and King said there will be a budget report now every two months to let the public know more regularly where the district stands.

Student Destiny Nguyen talked about how the district helped her get back to school.

Decrease in chronic attendance

The district is focusing on increasing attendance rates in chronically absent populations. Attendance rates for students released from juvenile centers or camps increased 10 percentage points over two years from 71 percent in 2014-15 to 81 percent in 2016-2017, according to Erika Torres, the executive director of the Student Health and Human Services division.

Her report also stated that the district helped 7,400 foster youth improve their attendance through case management and advocacy, Torres said.

High schools saw an improvement of 9.3 percent in the rate of chronic absences, which are students who miss more than 15 days of schools a year. Incarcerated youth dropped out at higher rates, and the district focused on them and saw that drop-out rates drastically decreased if students were reengaged immediately once they are released, Torres said.

Destiny Nguyen was a student who talked about getting into trouble and living in transitional housing and dropping out of school. “I could have smoked, I could have drank, and I chose not to,” said the student, who worked at a Chinese restaurant for 72 hours a week and the decided to come back to get her high school diploma.

Other noted attendance improvements included:

• Pilot programs have helped improve attendance at schools, with special emphasis on foster youth and students returning from juvenile hall.
• The district is working with more than 50 philanthropic and educational groups helping with attendance issues.
• Sept. 14 was the ninth annual Recovery Day when administrators made phone calls and home visits to convince students to come back to school. Since the program began, they have convinced 5,200 students to return to school, Torres said.

Celerity revamp

The district approved a material revision of the management companies of Celerity Education Global and took away Celerity Global as a management agency.

Grace Canada, who founded the Celerity charter schools, spoke to the school board along with other administrators and parents involved with the charter institution that had two schools rejected in the past by LA Unified and has four schools remaining under the district overbite.

“I want to convey the big picture, that this is a new day at Celerity,” Canada Said. “I plan to step aside as CEO and let new leadership take over. I want the schools to run smoothly.”

A few parents, a student, and administrators spoke about Celerity and talked about the improvements at the schools.

Board member Scott Schmerelson said he was confident that the remedy would correct some of the concerns that the district had about the school’s management.

The board voted unanimously in favor of the Celerity revisions.

The California Board of Education also approved the material revisions and increased enrollment for early grades for some schools.

According to a statement, “By approving the material revisions for Celerity Himalia and Rolas charters, our 6th-8th graders can start school on Monday. CEG Board is pleased that LAUSD and now the State Board of Education have looked favorably on the significant changes we’ve made. We terminated our corporate ties to Global Development and CEG will not receive any services from Global or a Global affiliate by October 1.  We are proud of our teaching staff and administration who have spent countless hours pursuing the very best for our school community.”

ICEF school with CEO Parker Hudnut, far right.

ICEF charter renewals

Four independent charter schools run by the Inner City Educational Foundation Public Schools were approved for their five-year renewal, but a few board members were still concerned about low test scores at the schools, and a lack of a plan to help English learners. The ICEF prompted board member George McKenna to read a commentary about not renewing under-performing charter schools.

Board member Richard Vladovic noted that some of the redesignation of English learner students was below the district’s level, and said it was unacceptable. Board member Kelly Gonez noted that the students showed some improvements overall, and board member Monica Garcia said the schools have made great strides.

But parent and former candidate for school board Carl Petersen said that the ICEF schools have failed in their mission and have a high suspension rate and lack enough behavioral support.

ICEF CEO Parker Hudnut said after the vote favored all the schools that he knew some improvements need to be made, and there are specific programs to also help the teachers with support. He said they have coaches for the teachers, and also workshops for reading, writing, and math focuses. “We also know we have specific issues at some of the schools and we are working very directly to improve those situations,” Hudnut said.

The board meeting actions, reports, and detailed materials, as well as a recording of the meeting, is available on the district’s website, and the next scheduled meeting is Oct. 3.

Ref Rodriguez with his parents on July 6, the day he was elected board president.

For this school board president, the end of DACA is personal.

Ref Rodriguez’s dad has only a third-grade education, and his mom left school at sixth grade. They were migrant workers in Mexico who came to the United States to offer their children a better future through education.

So Tuesday’s announcement that the Trump Administration was ending the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program hit Rodriguez hard. The new president of the nation’s second-largest school district spent the day in his office talking to media and meeting with Dreamers, including Juan Casas, who shared his story in tears.

“I see in DACA youth that same dream my parents had for me and my siblings bringing us to this country,” Rodriguez said. “I’m someone’s dream deferred so I could have something better.”

Rodriguez presides over the LA Unified board in a district where Latinos make up three-quarters of the student population, a quarter of whom come from immigrant families. District 5, which he represents, includes the predominantly Latino communities of City Terrace and Highland Park in northeast Los Angeles as well as the cities of Bell, Maywood, Vernon, South Gate, Huntington Park, and South Los Angeles.

“It impacted me profoundly,” Rodriguez said Wednesday. “It deeply concerned me what’s going to happen with our DACA students and employees, our DACA teachers, their students. I felt that we have an enormous responsibility for them as human beings.”

Rodriguez, 46, was the first of his four siblings to be born in the United States. His family is in this country legally thanks to the Immigration Reform and Control Act that provided amnesty in the mid-1980s.

“I don’t have any family members who are under DACA or undocumented, but I see the younger generations in my family and they do the same as the Dreamers. They work, they go to college, and contribute to our society.”

To pay for their children’s schools, his parents cleaned offices in Glendale at night. During the day, his dad worked at a Sears warehouse — the first job he got after arriving in the U.S. and where he stayed for over 30 years — and his mom took care of the home and kids.

“I think we were always aware of the sacrifice that was made to send us to a private Catholic school. That’s how we got the value of education.”

Rodriguez and his siblings attended public schools in their early years but ended up at Catholic schools because they were easier for his parents to navigate.

Rodriguez and his parents.

“They didn’t know how to navigate an institution, but they knew how to navigate church. They found that comfort level that they couldn’t find in the public system,” said Rodriguez, who turned down a full-ride scholarship to UC Berkeley to attend Loyola Marymount University, a local Catholic university because it was what he knew. He graduated in 1995 and earned his doctorate in 2006 from Fielding Graduate University in Santa Barbara.

His parents’ sacrifice is what makes Rodriguez so highly value the power that parents have in advocating for their children’s education. It’s what inspired him to become a leader in education and to fight to protect their power.

Recalling his mother’s humiliation at the hands of a school official makes him especially sensitive to the way parents are treated in schools. He wants to make sure no other parent has to feel “like they don’t have the right to fight for the best education for their kids.”

“I remember once my little brother forgot his book at home and my mom had to go to the school’s principal office where she was lectured in a way that I could see how the strength that she normally had left her body. She looked like she had lost her power.

“That’s not how a parent should feel when advocating for their kids. No one knows their children better than their parents, and when this sort of wall comes up, to me that’s criminal.”

A young Rodriguez at home with his parents.

It is not by chance that Rodriguez often listens more than he talks at board meetings, particularly if it is a parent raising a concern. He welcomes parents contacting him first if they have an issue at their school. He doesn’t mind if they start at the top.

“They can contact my office and I can put them in contact with the right person. That’s my main job is as a representative of my constituents in District 5.”

He has introduced several resolutions aligned with his priorities on empowering teachers, ensuring meaningful local control for parents, teachers, and students, and engaging parents as the district’s partners. He has supported resolutions to protect immigrant families and establish “Safe Zones.” Another resolution supported parents’ right to high-quality school options. His first resolution as president created a “Kids First” agenda putting the interests of students ahead of those of adults.

At the first board meeting, he chose to start off with students speaking about their schools rather than union leaders giving reports. And he launched a “Kids First” help desk to greet parents at board meetings and connect them with people who can help.

Before joining the board, he co-founded PUC Schools, one of LA’s largest charter school organizations. Whatever his role, Rodriguez considers that his most important job is to “connect families with the resources they need.”

“I like to listen to parents. I want to connect them with the right person to help move things forward in a way that will help their kids. It doesn’t sound powerful, but actually it is.”

With an estimated 1 in 4 LA Unified students having a parent who is undocumented, Rodriguez says he knows exactly what parents want to hear to be reassured.

More than ever, he says it’s important to have in place the “safe zones” and sanctuary schools policies so parents never feel worried about sending their kids to school or sharing their personal information.

“ICE officers won’t be allowed in our schools,” Rodriguez told Univision on Tuesday.

He recognizes that in a school district as big as LA Unified, that can be difficult to accomplish on a large scale. But he believes it can be done one school at a time.

“It can’t just be a poster in the school, we need to do more than that,” he said referring to the district’s new “We Are One LA Unified” campaign supporting immigrant families that launched a week before school started and offers an online resource guide and a toolkit in both English and Spanish.

“I have asked the superintendent to keep us informed in her monthly report on how the resources are being implemented in schools and if the district’s employees are ready to support these families,” he said.

In his downtime, Rodriguez disconnects from the weighty issues at work by watching reality TV shows. “I’m obsessed with the show Below Deck and the Real Housewives,” he said, laughing.

He also enjoys spending time with his partner of 19 years, Ron. He feels proud to be open about being gay, but he confessed it wasn’t easy at the beginning when he came out in his 20s. “I think it’s important in my position being a good role model, especially being a Catholic Latino gay man.

“I came out when I fell in love with my husband and I told my mom. She advised me then not to tell my dad and to give him some time. We didn’t talk for years.”

But that changed one Sunday morning when his dad knocked on his door. “He had a tree trimmer and said he was there to clean the overgrown tree, and that was it. That’s how we started talking again and Ron became part of the family.”

Rodriguez said he and his husband have no plans to have children of their own, because of their age and because they have a very big family already.

“I have 75 cousins on one side of my family and four nieces. I also have 640,000 kids I’m responsible for.”

Aside from his role on the board  — he was elected in May 2015 and will serve through 2020 — he has no other aspirations other than to continue being an educator. “The only reason I decided to run for this position was because I thought the district wasn’t moving in the direction it should,” he said. “Education is where I want to spend the rest of my life working. I’d love to go back and be a school principal, I’d love that!”

But in the end, he said, “I’m still that kid from Cypress Park. The kid who knew that his parents were sacrificing for him to go to college. The kid who knew their parents left their family behind so we could have a better life. That’s still who I am.”

Scott Schmerelson drew a school house — and quipped that he minored in art.

“Respect,” “transparency,” and “teamwork” only got one vote each. Oh, and so did “humility.”

The seven members of the largest school district in the country with an elected board gathered Tuesday at their first off-site retreat of the year, where they took a deep dive into health benefits but also hashed out core values for LA Unified.

As part of their opening exercise, each member had to place dots on the words or phrases they most valued for the district. Each person had six dots; there were 20 choices.

The most votes (six) was for the awkwardly titled value: “Everyone in schools work for success of each and every child.”

That phrase originated with board member Scott Schmerelson, who noted that when he visits a school, the teachers, administrators, custodians, and cafeteria workers all say they work for the school board. “No, I remind them that everyone is working for the kids,” Schmerelson said.

And so, echoing the “Kids First” agenda that board President Ref Rodriguez has emphasized from the moment he was elected, the board members cobbled together the phrase that ended up receiving the most votes.

The last one ended up getting six dots, the most.

“Equity” and “urgency” received five votes each. “Accountability,” “courage,” “diversity of strength,” and “meaningful collaboration” got four votes each.

These agreed-upon values are now supposed to be the guiding principles that dictate the board’s behavior and actions.

Some of the frank discussion during the retreat reflected the differences of philosophies among the seven board members, which go beyond even the widely discussed divisions that emerged after the May election and the resulting 4-3, pro-reform majority on the board.

“I am not politically correct. I believe in straight-up talk and I will be blunt,” said George McKenna. “This is more than education, it’s about a community with employees too.”

Rodriguez, who has criticized media for hyping the board’s disagreements, said he wanted to have more retreats so the board can get to know each other and explore key problems. The California Collaborative for Educational Excellence, which holds such think-tank seminars, volunteered their time for the day to help the board members outline priorities.

“We need some vocabulary on how we work together in public,” Rodriguez said at the beginning of the meeting. “Particularly in public.”

And so, the first retreat was held at the LA84 Foundation conference room in West Adams. Rather than sitting on the elevated horseshoe at LA Unified’s Beaudry headquarters, the board members sat facing each other, and they shared lunch during discussions.

McKenna said he didn’t like the restrictions of the Brown Act, which keeps him from discussing issues with fellow board members outside of the public eye. He said it stymies some of the board’s teamwork.

Board members place their dots on the words they thought should be core values for the district.

“I would like to include the word ‘teamwork’ as a core value, adding to what Dr. McKenna was saying,” said Nick Melvoin. “And I also think that ‘urgency’ is important because kids only get one shot in our schools. Also ‘courage’ because the first thing we have to do is take on other government partners and be courageous. And also ‘humility’ in understanding what we are in charge of and what we are in control of, or not.”

Most of Melvoin’s suggestions received only a single vote, but “urgency” scored high.

Mónica García suggested “high quality,” “learning,” and “trust,” but won others’ support for “equity.”

Rodriguez suggested “pursuit of excellence,” which got one vote.

Kelly Gonez suggested “honesty,” “joy,” “meaningful collaboration,” and “autonomy” for teachers, but McKenna challenged her on that last one.

“How autonomous can you be in teaching a subject when you have to stay within state guidelines?” McKenna asked. “It is fine to put words out there, but what does it mean?”

“There are laws,” Gonez said, who has most recently been a teacher.

“I would call that ‘flexibility,’” McKenna said. “When you educate, you are part of the system and guided by boundaries, and when I teach the class I have flexibility of how I teach it, but can I choose not to use that book? No, you can’t do that.”

Gonez answered, “There should be a feeling (by teachers) to know that decision makers trust you to do that job and balance between accountability and oversight to do their best work.”

Monitoring the discussion was the California Collaborative’s Carl Cohn, a former superintendent of Long Beach and San Diego, and Karen Polacheck, a past board member of Long Beach Unified, where they sometimes had meetings only 17 minutes long.

Cohn said, “The difference (between LAUSD and other districts) is that the media covers you every single day and it’s very, very tough.”

Superintendent Michelle King noted that LA Unified is “in a cycle of the way things go, and that’s how it keeps the machine running, month after month. We can consider streamlining some things and prioritizing some things.”

Schmerelson suggested that fellow board members don’t take the staff briefings as seriously as they should and could ask clarifying questions in advance and not at the board meetings.

Rodriguez said the superintendent has to deal with seven different personalities and styles. “As an elected member, we have constituents we have to answer to.”

Board members were asked to bring artifacts that represent their “leadership journey.”

Melvoin brought a photo of the two students he worked with when he brought a lawsuit on their behalf against the district in 2010 with the ACLU.

Kelly Gonez showed a picture of her first group of sixth-graders, which was her screensaver.

Gonez brought a photo on her computer of her first graduating class of sixth-graders “as a constant reminder of why I do this work.”

Richard Vladovic pulled out a piece of paper that he has carried for 20 years from “Chicken Soup for the Soul” about a man who throws starfish back to the sea.    

García brought in a shirt commemorating a demonstration of a school civil rights walkout that happened 20 days before she was born.

Rodriguez brought commencement announcements from Loyola Marymount University, his alma mater, including a recent one announcing King receiving her doctoral degree.

King brought the book, “Things I Want My Daughters to Know,” by Alexandra Stoddard and explained how it played an important part in shaping her leadership style and how she brought up her daughters. King also talked about her teaching days when she had an open classroom and how she saw the value of conversations with her students. “I saw the power of relationships, and as a leader I saw the transition of that to adults. I saw that teachers need the same kind of love, happiness, and joy that kids needed, maybe more.”

Schmerelson drew a school on his yellow legal pad and quipped, “I was an art minor, very minor. But my artifact is a school house. I have 102 schools and try to go to all of them a few times a year. I always think about the schools and the work they have to do.”

McKenna stood up and said, “I am the artifact, and it’s not the same as a relic, you don’t have to dig me up.”

He talked about growing up in the segregated South and then serving as principal and turning around a failing school. He spoke about proudly watching a former student graduate from medical school.

During the day of frank talk, McKenna raised concerns about the new task force advising the superintendent. “I don’t know who they are until I read about it in the newspaper, these people weren’t elected, and we are the supervisors of the superintendent,” McKenna said. “If the superintendent wants to have an advisory group, that’s fine, but our advice is more meaningful.”

McKenna challenged the board members’ commitment to the entire district, pointing out it’s not just kids, but “when we lose student enrollment in the district, it means we are not hiring cafeteria workers, bus drivers, and janitors, and it has an economic impact. The seven of us have that responsibility of fiscal solvency, or be content with the disaster that will come.”

McKenna asked his fellow board members to not be enablers in the hemorrhaging of students leaving the district, which includes authorizing enrollment in independent charter schools instead of district schools.

“It killed me when we had to get rid of all those new young teachers years ago and Nick Melvoin was one of them,” McKenna said, pointing out how Melvoin had to be laid off due to budget cuts. “Now he is back, and we need to make the best choice to be the school that’s right there in your neighborhood.”

McKenna said, “I am the artifact.”

McKenna turned to García, with whom he has sparred in the past, and said, “She has always been a warrior and she probably came out fighting, always on the side of justice and wanting to do the right thing. I respect that and I’m concerned that in our frustration to want to do something we become reckless.”

Vladovic pointed out that the expensive board elections come with baggage. “You may not be asked for a specific vote, but it’s an expectation in philosophy from the moneyed interests from whence you came,” Vladovic said. “Those interest groups have a specific agenda and any deviation and you will be out of it. At our last meeting, the papers picked that up right away.”

Melvoin spoke of the “corrosive influence in politics” and said it was good to set up “core values and have documents to go back to and see how we are spending our time. Are we debating things that are brought to us by other folks?”

Gonez added, “The board meetings are public spectacles. While there is the polarization, we have to know who we are behind the public persona and what the media and others create.”

Rodriguez suggested that more one-on-one discussions go on privately among the board members and said, “We can’t live on the same floor in seven different silos, we have to spend time with each other and be completely open and honest. The world will paint it differently and show our polarization because not getting along is more interesting. Let’s be boring.”

After the meeting, the board members chatted individually, and Melvoin brought up some of the core value words they discussed.

“I wished more people would have put their dots on ‘transparency,’” he said. “But I’ll keep working on it.”

Tuesday was the debut of the “Kids First Help Desk” at school board meetings, but unions didn’t feel welcome.

Labor leaders who work with LA Unified were surprised their regular labor report was not on the agenda at the first board meeting of the new school year.

Dropping the “labor partners update” was part of new board President Ref Rodriguez’s “Kid’s First” focus, so he began Tuesday’s meeting with students talking about their schools rather than with labor leaders. They were nowhere on the agenda, while they have been for the past four years.

But that didn’t stop Letetsia A. Fox, president of the California School Employees Association, who was the last person to speak during public comments at the end of Tuesday’s nearly six-hour board meeting.

“The theme last year was ‘We are one,’” Fox told the board, reflecting the catch phrase adopted by the district last year. “Can’t be one if you leave some of us out.”

Rodriguez said the union reports were not completely eliminated and could be part of a “time certain” in future meetings, but he wanted to give the chance for students and parents to speak first.

“I don’t want to show any favoritism to any particular group, and there are parents and students who wait 10 hours to speak to us in the public comment section at the end of the meetings,” Rodriguez said. “So why should labor partners be able to speak about public issues at the beginning of every meeting? I want it to be more equitable.”

Rodriguez is considering moving public comments earlier in the meeting, or to schedule a “time certain” for those comments, meaning they would start at a specific, pre-designated time listed on the agenda.

Cutting the labor report created additional concern among union representatives who see the board’s new pro-reform majority as hostile to union issues. This coming Tuesday, the board will meet in the first of its monthly board retreats, a new feature under Rodriguez’s presidency, and the topic will be the upcoming labor negotiations around the steady increase in costs for health care benefits.

Labor leaders who spoke at past meetings. Letetsia Fox is in blue.

Fox told LA School Report that she found out that the labor partners update was dropped when she saw the agenda last Friday. “I was surprised it was eliminated. I don’t know what the intent was and would love to speak to someone about it.”

Fox, like some other members of the eight labor unions bargaining for contracts with the district, want to see the reports reinstated.

Regular reports from labor unions began after Richard Vladovic was elected board president, and he didn’t start it until December 2013. The previous president, Mónica García, who is also still on the board, didn’t have such reports.

It was former board member David Tokofsky who suggested to Vladovic to give time for the labor reports as part of the “board president’s report,” which is usually held at the beginning of each meeting. Tokofsky initially suggested that one union be highlighted at one meeting, but Vladovic allowed them all to make a report, and that tradition carried on under Steve Zimmer, who was defeated in May’s election.

“I don’t think the general public knows that this was a regular part of the meeting,” Rodriguez said.

But the change came as a surprise for a few board members too, and Scott Schmerelson asked during the meeting if the labor reports could be reinstated or if they could have a discussion about it. Rodriguez said they would discuss it.

In an interview Wednesday, Rodriguez suggested that the courtesy of such reports could also be extended to other community groups. When asked, he said those groups could include the California Charter Schools Association, which usually has a representative speaking at every meeting about specific agenda items.

Board member Scott Schmerelson asked about the omission of the labor reports.

“Whatever we do, I want to make sure that it is equitable, and I want students and parents first,” Rodriguez said. “It’s more important to me to have time for parent groups to speak earlier.”

Max Arias, Service Employees’ International Union (SEIU) Local 99’s executive director, said, “While it is unclear whether the change in the board meeting agenda is a permanent change, we do believe that it is important for the board to continue to designate a specific time to hear from frontline employees who work directly with students every day and whose voice is essential to the delivery of programs and services that impact student learning.”

Cecily Myart-Cruz, vice president of the teacher unions United Teachers Los Angeles and National Education Association, said, “It was very disappointing to see our reports taken off the agenda. It just proves to us that the interests of billionaires who got this board elected have now taken over the district.”

Myart-Cruz was in the audience proudly noting that she taught the new student school board member Benjamin Holtzman in sixth grade. She said the only way UTLA could register their complaints was during the three minutes given on a specific agenda item.

UTLA President Alex Caputo-Pearl declined to answer when asked what he would be saying during his labor report before the meeting.

Juan Flecha addressing the board at a previous meeting.

Juan Flecha, president of the Associated Administrators of Los Angeles, recalled that their group had to file a complaint with the Public Employee Relations Board in 2010 when they said García, as president, kept them from speaking at a school board meeting. The complaint, brought by past AALA president Judith Perez, stated that García and the school board were in violation of the Brown Act, which requires open dialogue and free speech at public meetings. (See AALA Free Speech Complaint.) In a settlement, the district agreed that “any board member, upon agreement of the entire board, can recognize someone to speak” about an item even it they haven’t signed up for a speaker card. AALA won $6,000 in attorney’s fees and agreed not to challenge the decision the board made. 

Flecha said he wasn’t surprised about the reports being stricken from the agenda and said it reflected the “denial of free speech and the lack of professional courtesy in the past.”

Flecha said he contacted Rodriguez’s office on the Wednesday before the board meeting and was told the final decision wasn’t yet made. He wasn’t contacted until 6 p.m. the day before the meeting and told they wouldn’t be part of the agenda.

“The district is publicly effusive with labor partners when we make concessions to keep the district afloat and operating,” Flecha said. “Moreover, there are many sound bites promulgating ‘LAUSD is family,’ ‘We love our employees,’ ‘The importance of being transparent, communicative, and collaborative,’ ‘How we need to build bridges across chasms,’ and the like. I have to say in this instance, the district did not ‘walk the talk.’  There was no conversation, no collaboration, no rationale given.”

Flecha said he agreed with Rodriguez that parents should have a voice. “Parents are indeed important and AALA values their partnership,” Flecha said. “With this in mind, I am surprised by the board president’s response as it seems to pit parents against labor partners. We all have an important voice in the process and need to be acknowledged, accommodated, and respected. It is the professional, courteous thing to do.”

The Kids First Help Desk staffed by the Parent and Community Services staff.

Speak UP, a coalition of parents who helped push to elect the pro-reform board, said in Tweets and on their website that the school police kept parents and Speak UP representatives outside the board meeting  for lack of space while a union representative “was allowed to come and go as he pleased.”

Jenny Hontz from Speak UP wrote, “If we’re really going to put kids first, representatives for parents and kids should have the same access to meetings as labor representatives. ‘Kids First’ cannot just be a slogan. It needs to be backed up with real actions that lead to real results.”

Rodriguez said that overall he was pleased with the first board meeting that he ran, although he said he wished the meeting could have been shorter. The afternoon meeting, open to the public, ran five hours and 44 minutes, which followed a three-hour closed session morning meeting. He noted that a handful of parents were helped with issues at the “Kids First Help Desk” at the entrance of the auditorium by the Parent and Community Services representatives, although many of the people did end up waiting to speak to the board as well.

“I still have to learn how to pull the trigger on our long discussions, but overall I think it went well,” Rodriguez said. “I was surprised to get out of the board meeting and it was still daylight.”

George McKenna defends his resolution.

A controversial resolution condemning a legislative proposal to start a STEM school in Los Angeles that would be outside LA Unified’s control failed after a heated debate Tuesday.

The first school board meeting of the new year was supposed to display board President Ref Rodriguez’s “Kid’s First” agenda. A new help desk was set up to greet parents at the entrance to the board auditorium. Students kicked off the meeting with stories of success at their schools. And a new student school board member was sworn in.

But the biggest chunk of the meeting — a full hour and a half — was devoted to discussing a new science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) school that would serve about 800 students in Los Angeles County in sixth- through 12th-grades.

Ref Rodriguez takes over as president.

As much as Rodriguez hoped to show a unified board, the vote fell along the divisive lines of pro-reform and pro-labor factions. The resolution failed to pass, with the four pro-reform members succeeding in defeating it.  

New board member Nick Melvoin expressed frustration over the time spent on the resolution. “We have spent so much time on a political proxy fight, and I hope to spend more time on student space and actually doing the people’s business,” he said.

AB 1217 was proposed by state Assemblyman Raul Bocanegra, D-San Fernando, and Sen. Anthony Portantino (D-La Cañada Flintridge). The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors voted Tuesday to support the legislation.

Because LA Unified would not have control over the school that would inevitably take students out of the district, and thus the state funds that follow them, board member Scott Schmerelson co-wrote the resolution with George McKenna, asking for the district to oppose the legislation.

“We will have our children in that school and we will have no oversight of this school,” Schmerelson said. “We should have the most authority, and we will have none. The public has entrusted us, and there is no transparency with that school. We have nothing to say about it no matter what they do.”

A primary offense, stated by the resolution’s authors as well as Superintendent Michelle King, was that the idea that the district can’t do a STEM school properly. She said her team tried to meet a few times with the authors of the bill to understand the reason why they proposed the school, and she wasn’t satisfied with any of the answers.

Kelly Gonez tried to add a friendly amendment.

“It seemed like an uncomfortable set-up, like we are not doing something at LAUSD, and we do have high-performing STEM schools,” King said. “It’s fine that they wanted to start another school, but to say it’s because LAUSD does not have that, that is the narrative I was concerned about.” King rattled off the independent charters, affiliated charters, magnets, pilots and girls and boys schools that have a STEM focus. She said the district and the LA County Office of Education should also be involved. “I’m still not satisfied and I’m not in support of this assembly bill,” King said.

“There is circular logic here,” said McKenna, who co-wrote the resolution. “We are saying we have wonderful schools in the district but there are other places to send our kids to.”

McKenna warned that state legislation like AB 1217 is only the first of bills to come that will usurp the district’s authority. “This will not be the first and only attempt to do this.”

The ideological debate included discussion of who the school board actually was voted to serve, and who pays their salary, which jumped from $45,627 to $125,000 this year.

“We were elected to serve the interests of the LA Unified school district,” McKenna said.

“I was elected to represent the people,” said Mònica García, the longest sitting board member.

Melvoin said, “I was elected to serve all kids in all schools, not just to protect an institution.” He added, “This is an example of divisive politics.”

Melvoin said the argument “rehashes the same disputes” and said the resolution is “symbolic” and the board could be spending time on more important issues. But he did say he wished the state politicians “had more faith in us” when they came up with the idea of the STEM school in LA Unified’s neighborhood.

Board member Kelly Gonez said she talked to the legislators proposing the school and said she had concerns about accountability and transparency. But she also said the McKenna-Schmerelson resolution was “more hostile than it needs to be.”

Gonez drafted a friendly amendment that essentially re-wrote McKenna and Schmerelson’s resolution and suggested the board express concerns about how the school could better fit into the area, but not oppose it.

None of the other board members even seconded Gonez’s amendment, and it died without being discussed.

Board member Richard Vladovic said he believed in choices for students but suggested it was “plain-out fraud if the state wants to start running schools, they should then change the law. It’s our responsibility, they should allow us to have the money, even authorize it for a charter if they want.”

Student board member Benjamin Holtzman.

Student board member Benjamin Holtzman said he supported the resolution because of a paragraph in the resolution that suggested it could result in property tax increases, which he said would only hurt people in poverty.

But Rodriguez, who spoke only when he was about to cast the final and decisive vote that ended up defeating the resolution, told Holtzman that he had asked for data or reports on any tax implications, but none could be found.

Holtzman’s vote doesn’t count as an official vote, but he was registered as supporting the resolution, as did McKenna, Schmerelson, and Vladovic. Rodriguez voted against it, as did Garcia, Gonez, and Melvoin. So, LA Unified has no official stance for or against the new school.

Meanwhile, the Senate Appropriations Committee placed AB 1217 in a “suspense file” on Monday after determining the bill would cost about $286,000 to implement. That places the bill on hold until the costs are minimized.

LAUSD board President Ref Rodriguez.

When parents show up at Tuesday’s school board meeting to complain or gripe or advocate for their child, they will be greeted by something new: a “Kids First” Help Desk.

As part of his newly passed resolution to put kids first at LA Unified, school board President Ref Rodriguez said that people who used to have to wait in the board conference room for hours to make a public comment will now be able to get help almost immediately.

“We are doing something tomorrow that is different,” Rodriguez said in an interview Monday before the first full school board meeting that he will be overseeing. “When you walk in, they will be asking what you need, and you can go into a room where all the staff are sitting and they will pull out the right person.”

It won’t be a situation where your name and phone number will be taken and someone will get back to you, Rodriguez said. “We want to iron it out right then and there.”

The public part of the school board meeting is scheduled to begin at 1 p.m., and the “Kids First” Help Desk will be staffed starting at noon, Rodriguez said. It will be run by the district’s Parent and Community Services staff.

“It won’t prevent someone from speaking to us,” Rodriguez said.

State law governing public meetings prevents school board members from addressing specific issues that are not already listed on the agenda. So Rodriguez said he hopes that if people have specific problems, this new desk will direct parents to the help they need.  

This is one of the first ways that Rodriguez plans to implement his Kids First resolution that was passed shortly after he was elected to the position last month.

The first meeting of the school year will be at the Beaudry Headquarters Auditorium, at 333 S. Beaudry Ave., and begins at 1 p.m. The agenda is posted, and the meeting will be broadcast live.

Kelly Gonez proposes her first resolution.

New school board member Kelly Gonez is introducing an ambitious resolution that calls for making detailed data available to the public to ensure students are supported and able to complete college and “access a rewarding career.”

With this resolution, called “Creating Pathways to Lifelong Success for Our Students,” Gonez is fulfilling a key campaign promise to help get every LA Unified student ready for higher education or the job force.

Gonez said she hopes the information will be helpful to both parents and educators. “I would also have loved to have had this information as a teacher too,” Gonez said Thursday after spending the first week of school visiting her schools in District 6 in the northeast San Fernando Valley.

Among the data she is calling for, within 120 days, is a trend analysis of:

• student grade point averages of 3.0 (a B average) or above

• AP course exams with a score of 3 or higher

• PSAT scores greater than 430 in English and 480 in math

• SAT scores greater than 1550

• completion of FAFSA forms, for college financial aid.

The resolution also calls for a college counseling center available in every high school, every 10th- and 11th-grader taking the SAT, and information about vocational certifications, technical training, and apprenticeships. She also calls for an analysis of 10 years’ worth of college application completion rates, college enrollment rates, remediation or developmental course-taking rates, transfers from two- to four-year institutions, and college completion rates.       

“This is very personal to me and I feel very passionate about it, coming from being a secondary teacher and a first-generation college student in my family,” Gonez said. “I talked a lot about college and career readiness, and it is a top priority, so I wanted to work on making that campaign priority real and meaningful and work with the great work that is happening in the district.”

Her resolution in itself includes paragraphs of data on the district’s cohort graduation rate, the nation’s fastest-growing occupations, LA Unified students’ college-going and persistence rates, and the gap in college graduation rates for low-income students.

School board President Ref Rodriguez said, “I love this idea of tracking the data and what we can learn from that.” He first read the detailed resolution being proposed by Gonez this week. He also said he talked to Superintendent Michelle King on Friday about the amount of data called for, and King said it wouldn’t cause an undue burden. “It’s a little long, but I’m impressed with what her team has put together,” Rodriguez said.

Gonez said she was also aware of not wanting to dictate work to the superintendent’s office. Fellow board member Richard Vladovic, when running against Rodriguez for the president’s post, said he would put a stop to resolutions that dictate policy and tell the superintendent what to do.

Gonez said she spoke to King and received feedback from key staff members before the resolution was made public this week. The resolution will be presented on Tuesday and will be up for a vote at September’s school board meeting.

“I want to work collaboratively and not put any undue burden or sidetrack the work the district is doing in this area,” Gonez said. “I think resolutions shouldn’t micromanage, but I think this works nicely with the strategic plan to get students ready for life, and this is putting more meat on the policy. It will bring the pieces together into one coherent place.”

Gonez has been a champion of more transparency with school data, and she said she wants to see the information available to parents through the Parent Portal and Student Dashboards.

Gonez’s resolution also calls for the superintendent to come up with an estimated timeline, potential limitations, projected costs of staff time and data collection, and a proposal of how the information can be integrated into the schools.

Gonez said she is concerned about a financial burden but asked how much it would cost to make sure every high school has a trained college counselor and a Postsecondary Leadership Team.

“I am also aware of the successes and agreements the district has and want to build on that,” she said. Her resolution calls for expanding partnerships with local community colleges and universities, labor partners, and the city and county.

“The biggest obstacle is how we build this into the culture of the district,” Gonez said. “That takes time, and that is the challenge.”

Bell High School is the last to end its multi-track schedule. (Courtesy: Bell High School)

For the first time in 36 years, all LA Unified district students are starting school at the same time, now that the last school — Bell Senior High School — has ended its multi-track schedule.

In 1981, Bell and nearly 80 percent of the district’s schools went on a year-round schedule to alleviate overcrowding.

Even though some students and parents ended up preferring the multi-track schedule, which gave two six-week breaks rather than a long summer break, the district decided to get all the schools back on one schedule. Even the principal at Bell, Rafael Balderas, thought the multi-track system benefited some of his students.

Between 1980 and 2000, LA Unified’s enrollment jumped to nearly 700,000. Even with bond measures to build new schools and add portable classrooms, there weren’t enough classrooms. Most campuses used a multi-track system that staggered class schedules and used the schools year round.

Bell’s switch back to a traditional schedule took a few years longer as the school awaited a new high school to open a mile away in Maywood that would siphon off about 600 of the 3,100 students. Maywood High is also the last of the schools to be built with the $9 billion construction program that LA Unified launched in 2000. A decade ago, Bell had more than 4,500 students.

Bell expects a total enrollment of 2,638 to 2,699 for this coming school year, according to a principal’s report earlier this year. The Title I school is located in the city of Bell about 10 miles south of Los Angeles and has a student population that is 97 percent Latino.

“We promised to end forced busing and multi-track calendars, and together we have,” said school board member Mónica García at a recent board meeting. “This marks the first time that LAUSD will provide every child an instructional program on a traditional academic calendar with 180 days. Thank you, voters and community partners.”

Students begin school on Tuesday, Aug. 15. Click here for the full schedule for LA Unified district schools.

• More from LA School Report: Maywood school is the last to open in massive building project. But dwindling enrollment makes today’s LAUSD a very different district.

(Click on photo to play video of the school board meeting.)

It was one of the most uncomfortably dramatic moments at any LA Unified School Board meeting in recent memory — maybe the oddest of any in the country this year.

Flanked by her friends, 15-year-old Lila Copeland stood in silence for a minute and a half at the tail end of a nearly 10-hour board meeting. She was begging for an answer by any of the seven school board members to step up as the point person for her student-run group.

They want to put some bite into the vegan options pilot program being launched this fall at LA Unified. The students want to be actively involved in marketing the vegan pilot at the schools, and because one of their prime supporters was voted out of office, they fear that a lack of interest by the new board may cause the pilot to die on the vine.

They had hoped for a new ally on the board. They got nothing.

Lila Copeland initiated the vegan pilot, with a happy pig. (Courtesy Earth Peace)

“We are afraid this vegan pilot is being set up to fail,” said Lila after the meeting. “We don’t think there’s a commitment to do it anymore.”

Tall, thin, and blonde, the Palisades Charter High School 10th grader easily could be viewed as a typical California girl, but she has studied science, law, and politics and networked with experts worldwide for this quest. “I want to help my classmates have healthy options to eat food that won’t cause obesity, heart disease, or diabetes,” she said.

A strong athlete, she dished up anecdotes and statistics to the school board about how she gets her protein in her diet, and how the district can save money by offering vegan options. She hasn’t had dairy since age 2, no eggs for more than five years and has never eaten meat. “I am a competitive runner, two-time All American nationally, ranked 11th in the nation for long distance and the California Interscholastic Federation champion in my division in Los Angeles,” Lila said.

But, there are detractors, such as the Meat Matters Campaign that is closely monitoring Lila’s movement, and already sent letters of concern about the program to LAUSD.

The silent treatment given by the board to the students at the June meeting went viral over social media and enraged more students. Her supporters have swelled from a dozen girls to more than 300 students from throughout the district.

And, they have boys, now like junior class president Kevin Patel from Santee Education Complex, who came to speak at the first meeting of the new school board in July.

Another Santee student, Stephanie Yescas, 16, spoke up, too, saying to the board, “I watched as you stared us down. It was uncomfortable and wrong for students who worked so hard to get this done.”

Eleven students spoke —at least one from every corner of the 710 miles of the district — and they asked that the board continue supporting the vegan pilot program that the district approved this year. Their teary-eyed speeches were followed by a disheveled guy with an animal hand puppet who wasn’t connected to their cause. He made grunts and bodily noises during the meeting.

Lila Copeland and Pamela Anderson

“The kids are worried that they are not being taken seriously, and they are feeling shut out,” said Amanda Copeland, Lila’s mother who is nursing a hurt foot and still stayed with her daughter in the heat outside before the school board meeting in a wheelchair. “They were treated very unfairly by a board that claims they put kids first.”

Lila has brought in a smorgasbord of internationally renowned vegan activists, most notably a late-night appearance by “Baywatch” superstar Pamela Anderson. There was the three-time world record-breaking vegan marathoner Fiona Louise Oakes who flew in from England, vegan chef Babette Davis, social media star Tim “VeganFatKid” Moore, best-selling author and health expert Neal Barnard, and Cedars-Sinai doctor Jay Gordon. Speakers also included TV journalist Jane Velez-Mitchell, 10-year-old actress Felix Hemstreet, and Torre Washington, who bills himself as “a professional vegan bodybuilder.”

Their previous champion on the school board, Steve Zimmer, who is vegetarian himself, was unseated by Nick Melvoin. The students said they tried meeting with Melvoin and contacted all the other board members to help with their cause, but were turned down.

“We have expressed concerns that they will not be offering good options and that this pilot is doomed to failure,” Lila said. “We have a stake in making this a success.”

Zion Flores of USC, former school board president Steve Zimmer, Bahar Ghandahari of Van Nuys High School and Lila Copeland of Palisades Charter High

The students did meet with new Food Services Division Director Joseph Vaughn, but they felt they got a lukewarm reception. The students hoped to help market the vegan options on campuses where the pilot programs were being launched, and they wanted to help the district with cheaper, tastier vegan dishes.

Vaughn told LA School Report it is important for the pilot program to pick random schools to monitor the program’s success. The schools will be picked in August and the program will begin Sept. 5 and run for 90 days. He must get permission slips from every parent who wants a plant-based milk substitute as an option. And, he wanted the least amount of disruptions on the campuses — so no student advocacy.

“I’m very excited about the vegan pilot and I expect it to be a success, I really want it to work,” Vaughn said. “We don’t want to skew the data, but we expect it to be successful like all of our other pilot programs have been.”

LA Unified has led the nation with some of their food services pilots, such as serving antibiotic- and hormone-free chicken and turkey, and now re-introducing low-sugar flavored milk into all schools after a short pilot program proved that students were buying more lunches because of it. The district is the largest in the nation serving breakfasts to all the students. They finished a successful supper pilot and this year will launch after school meals in every Title I school. Since 2013, all schools have a “Meatless Monday” program.

“There are some challenges, [the vegan program] could be more expensive, because the milk substitutes of soy and almond milk are 40 cents more a carton,” said Vaughn, who has been on the job for nearly a year and is trying to make the food program self-sustaining. “But we want to make it work.”

Meanwhile, Lila and her friends have flooded the school board members with 271 emails, and they are a third of their way in a $25,000 crowd-source fundraiser. The next goal is to take the program statewide and then nationally, Lila said.

Lila started the Earth Peace Foundation which she describes as a mom-and-pop outfit except there’s no pop. “Me and my mom fund this out of our own pocket,” Lila said.

Her mother said, “I’m so proud of how far we’ve come in the two years that Lila has devoted to this, and we will keep coming back to make sure this board listens to the students and hears their concerns.”

Lila has a photo of her posted on her web page with a giant pig.

“No animal wants to die to become our food,” Lila said. “We want kids to know that they can chose healthy vegan options that are not bland. We want to make this work.”

Austin Beutner co-chairs new task force.

*UPDATED

Philanthropist and former LA Times publisher Austin Beutner said he doesn’t see the new task force he is co-leading as a body that has any intention of usurping the new LA Unified School Board, or telling the superintendent what to do.

“We are here to support Michelle King, and offer suggestions,” Beutner said in an interview with LA School Report. “Classically, the role of the school board is to set policy issues and oversee the leadership. That’s not what we’re going to be doing.”

Beutner teamed with Laphonza Butler to create a diverse 11-member team for the LA Unified Advisory Task Force that includes leaders in marketing, business, ethnic groups, government, and more. Butler is president of Service Employees International Union Local 2015, which represents home health care workers and helped reform the state’s home health care services.

The task force is an outside advisory group that has no specific standing with the district, and won’t cost the district any money. At least two school board members contacted said the idea for the new task force is a great idea, similar to the Independent Financial Review panel that gave financial advice two years ago. This is not to replace, but to supplement the panel’s suggestions, and in fact, one of the review panel members is on the new task force.

School board President Ref Rodriguez said, “I support that Superintendent King assembled this diverse group of leaders because I believe it’s always important to have external entities serving as thought partners to help us reach our goal of 100 percent graduation. Working collaboratively with Dr. King, this group can examine and reimagine the way this district is working towards the objectives laid out in the strategic plan and help us communicate our progress to the public.”

King notified the school board months ago in her weekly newsletter update to the members and has attended the two meetings that the task force already had in May and June where they  determined that their first plan of attack is trying to curb chronic absenteeism.

“At my request, business leader Austin Beutner has assembled the LA Unified Advisory Task Force, bringing together innovative civic, education and other leaders to support our efforts to improve District schools and accelerate student achievement,” King said in a statement. She said, “The task force is partnering with me to provide recommendations for effectively executing the goals outlined in our Strategic Plan. At the same time, we want to foster a culture of change in which we identify opportunities and embrace solutions to close the achievement gap.”

King noted, “My team and I are excited and energized by the opportunity to collaborate with these community partners in the bold and transformative work of educating our future leaders.”

Wendy Greuel is also on the task force.

Former city Controller Wendy Greuel, who is also on the task force, said, “I’ve been impressed with how Michelle King is engaged with the task force and how enthusiastic she and her staff are about taking on the challenges of the district.”

Greuel, who is now the chairwoman of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority, said, “I am a product of LAUSD and my son is in an LA Unified school now.”

Beutner challenges the critics who have already suggested that there aren’t enough educators or labor leaders involved. “I would say to them to take a look at our list again,” Beutner said. “We have Michael (Spagna, provost and vice president for academic affairs at Cal State Dominguez Hills), we have Sherry Lansing (past studio chief of Paramount Pictures and 20th Century Fox) who can help with marketing and getting the story out, we have Helen Torres, of HOPE (Hispanics Organized for Political Equality) who can help us figure out ways of involving the Latino community. I think we are pretty well represented.”

And if they don’t have the experts on the task force, they plan to ask for some and have raised $400,000 independently of the school district to help pay for that. Beutner said the money came from the California Community Foundation, the California Endowment, the Weingart Foundation and the Ballmer Group, a charity started by the owner of the LA Clippers basketball team and former Microsoft chief. Beutner said that the money will help pay for the consulting firm, Education Resource Strategies.

Longtime school board member Mónica García said she thought the task force was a great idea, and said it was a strategy that the district has been trying to do for a while, bringing in community leaders and philanthropists.

“This effort by Dr. King reflects her leadership,” García said. “I reject the speculation that she or we are not doing our job. I’m delighted she has engaged leaders like this and that everyone is looking forward to helping us serve our kids. Look at the size of our organization. We need a lot of support.”

Beutner said the team won’t be touching the issue of charter schools in the district because that is a policy issue. “It doesn’t matter what kind of school you’re in, chronic absenteeism is an issue,” Beutner said.

Greuel pointed out that Beutner went out of his way to make sure the task force isn’t specifically tilted toward one way of thinking or another.

“We all plan to work together to find resources without any side,” Greuel said. “I’m sure there will be a lot of conversations coming from outside about what we are doing.”

Beutner predicted that the first report of the task force will be sometime in early fall, maybe as early as September, after King decides how to implement any of their suggestions. Then, they will discuss what to tackle next, it could be 10 to a dozen other issues facing the district. There is no deadline, and the task force will exist “until we run out of steam,” Beutner said.

Board member Richard Vladovic first got Beutner in touch with King after she developed her strategic plan, and there was some criticism by board members that it wasn’t specific enough and had no plan for implementation. Vladovic said at the July board meeting that he felt that board is dictating too many edicts to the superintendent and they should “let her do her job” without so many resolutions.

García said, “Kids and families aren’t waiting for us. I can appreciate some people coming up with solutions, and it is our duty to hold ourselves accountable.”

One of the items García said she hoped the task force would look into is more funding for special education. Greuel said she hoped the next project may include how to help principals at schools on a local level with day-to-day support.

“For now, it is important to establish at kindergarten how important it is to show up to school every day,” Greuel said. “When kids are in their seats that means more funds, and it means more are learning.”

The task force may meet once a week or once a month, it depends on the schedule of some very involved members.

“We are all very busy people,” Beutner said. “But if you want something done, like they say, go find the busiest people you know.”

Some other questions and issues that have come up about the task force.

•    What is this task force supposed to do?

The LA Unified Advisory Task Force has no official standing at the school district and no legal authority to set education policy and was created by King to help her figure out ways of best implementing her strategic plan for the district.

•    Who is on the task force?

The panel members are:

Austin Beutner, former deputy mayor for Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and past publisher of the LA Times;

Elise Buik, first female president of the United Way of Los Angeles;

Laphonza Butler, president of Service Employees International Union Local 2015, which represents caregivers, nursing home and home healthcare workers;

Wendy Greuel, former L.A. city controller and chairwoman of the Los Angeles Homeless Services Authority;

Sherry Lansing former CEO of Paramount Pictures and first woman to head a major studio when she ran 20th Century Fox;

Miguel Santana, former city administrative officer for L.A. and head of the Los Angeles County Fair Association who also served on the Financial Review Panel;

Chris Silbermann, a founding partner at the ICM talent and literary agency;

Renata Simril, head of LA84, supporting youth sports and also on the LA2024 Olympic Bid Committee as well as former chief of staff to the LA Times publisher;

Michael Spagna, provost and vice president for academic affairs at Cal State Dominguez Hills and former dean at Cal State Northridge;

Helen Torres, executive director of  Executive Director of Hispanics Organized for Political Equality (HOPE); and

Jake Winebaum, an entrepreneur and founder of Brighter.com, which helps people find cheaper and reliable dental care.

•    Is this a rebuke or concern about either the new school board or King?

Superintendent King actually convened the panel, after talking about it with Beutner, and she will be sitting at all the meetings.

“Dr. King is very excited about working with these folks,” said LA Unified communications director Shannon Haber. “She will not be surprised about anything they report because she will be sitting in at all the meetings.”

•    How will the public know about what is going on with the task force?

Beutner said that when the task force has a report ready to issue, it will be made public. “I don’t want this to be a secret process, we will explain our recommendations,” he said.

•    Is the task force going to replace the findings in the blue-ribbon Independent Financial Review Panel?

No, this is a brand new task force created to give guidance to the district, and be a supplement to the review panel’s budget findings. The review panel was put together by past superintendent Ramon Cortines as a gift to his successor to have outside experts give advice about how to fix the financial problems facing the district. Led by former state treasurer Bill Lockyer, the panel did two former superintendents from other districts.

This new task force includes one person, Miguel Santana, who was also on the financial review panel.

•    Is this undercutting anything the school board may ask the superintendent to do?

No, many of the recommendations that the task force could come up with won’t require a vote or input by the school board, and the superintendent could act on the suggestions. Vladovic did say that he thought the school board was getting in the way of the superintendent by issuing too many resolutions that set policy for the district and give instructions to the administration.

•    Does this have anything to do with charters?

No, Beutner said that charter issues are policy issues that the school board itself will have to tackle, but he did acknowledge that some topics they get involved with may have some ramifications or involvement with charter schools.

Five of the 11 board members donated to charter-backed candidates in the past, according to the LA Times. The SEIU union that Butler is a part of helped support labor-backed candidates that charters opposed.

Sarah Favot and Esmeralda Fabián Romero contributed to this report.

* Adds Ref Rodriguez’s statement.