Superintendent John Deasy banned chocolate and strawberry milk from the school menu five years ago after the school board voted it was too sugary for students.

But now LA Unified School Board President Steve Zimmer said he was concerned that there is a waste of a lot of milk that students are served but don’t drink.

“Kids really do want water, they don’t drink milk. Largely in high school they want water,” Zimmer said at a special board meeting Tuesday to discuss district finances. “I suspect the waste of milk is fairly phenomenal in high school.”

That was confirmed by Laura Benavidez, of LA Unified Food Services, who added that federal standards do not consider water to have any nutritional value, and therefore “that will be a direct cost to the district” if milk is replaced with water, she said. Benavidez said that school cafeteria managers have long agreed that students would drink more chocolate milk if it was brought back to the menu.

Board member Ref Rodriguez pointed out that there were many low-calorie and low-sugar alternatives for chocolate milk today that weren’t as available in 2011. Some charter schools serve flavored milk that is low fat.

“Let’s bring chocolate milk back!” declared board member Monica Ratliff, who pointed out that the decision to ban it was made before she joined the board.

In fact, only Zimmer and Monica Garcia were on the board at the time, and they both voted to ban flavored milk. Former board members Tamar Galatzan and Marguerite LaMotte voted against the ban, citing findings from the American Pediatrics Association and the American Heart Association that showed flavored milk is not excessively harmful to children.

One of the newest board members, Scott Schmerelson, said, “As a school principal who monitored the cafeteria a lot, I saw children line up to get their chocolate or strawberry milk first in case it ran out, and inevitably, it ran out. Can we please get it back?”

Zimmer asked the district staff to look into getting the federal government to pay for water or see how the district can get it at low cost.

Benavidez also pointed out that they are piloting hydration stations at Marina Del Rey Middle School and Jefferson High School to have flavored water with strawberry and lemon added to it. “They are enormously popular,” she said.

She wrote down the board’s ideas and said, “Those are some of the things we can look at.”

LA Unified has so many different kinds of schools it’s hard to keep them all straight. With such varied terms as affiliated charter, independent charter, magnet school, pilot school, continuation school, option school and others, it can be a challenge to understand what they are, what they offer and how they differ.

This is the next part of an LA School Report series taking an in-depth look at the different categories of schools that exist within the massive LA Unified school district. 

Today we examine affiliated charter schools.

(Read more on affiliated charters: Does ‘charter’ make you look smarter? Principal of LAUSD’s newest affiliated charter says yes and The elementary school-turned-affiliated charter that became so popular parents fake their addresses)

(Read more about magnets and their expansion in our series, including profiles of Bravo and King/Drew medical magnets.)

One of the most successful school models in LA Unified is also one of the most under-used, and it’s becoming even more scarce. Only one school in the last two years has even applied to become one.

The unique “affiliated charter” schools — coined and developed locally at the nation’s second-largest school district — achieve higher test scores than either the district’s prized magnets or independent charter schools. They also have lower absentee rates than the district average.

But only 53, or 4 percent, of LA Unified’s 1,274 schools use the affiliated charter model. The schools are located in whiter, wealthier neighborhoods — nearly half of the student population is white in affiliates—and exist in communities where parent involvement has pushed the school administrators into more creative and innovative methods of teaching.

“Some may see it as the best of both worlds,” said Jose Cole-Gutierrez, the executive director of the district’s Charter Schools Division that oversees all charter schools connected to the district. “They are semi-autonomous schools of the district very much connected to the district’s collective bargaining, district staff and more, but each school also has its own governance council.”

Affiliated charters can choose their own curriculum, opt to reduce class sizes or adjust classroom scheduling, offer more professional development and exercise more control over budgeting, hiring and school site decisions. But they adhere to all district collective bargaining agreements. And the district receives most of the state money that goes to an affiliated charter and funnels it to pay for teacher and administrator salaries, although there’s some spending freedom with the rest of the money. A school, for example, must teach basic standards and can buy its own textbooks that are different from what the district uses, but must figure out how to pay for them.

In the past year, affiliated charters have ranked significantly higher in the English and math scores than either magnet or independent charter schools. And their California Office to Reform Education’s (CORE) scores from the past year have averaged 79.8 while the district average is 60.

Yet this successful school model is on the decline in LA Unified because fewer school principals are choosing the model.

“Like pilot schools, this is part of the diversity of options in our district,” Cole-Gutierrez said. “This model allows for innovation and still keeps the school in the family, so to speak.” He notes, “The number of schools applying for affiliated charter status has dropped significantly, and that could be for a variety of reasons.”

One reason is that a majority of the full-time teachers at a school must support the move, and the principal has to initiate the process. Also, the block grant funding that used to flow to affiliated charters was dropped two years ago after the state switched to the Local Control Funding Formula. Finally, the affiliated model depends on a highly committed teacher population as well as an active parent community because the school’s governance board must be made up of equal numbers of both.

The idea for affiliated charter schools caught on when it was first introduced in 1993, especially in smaller schools that couldn’t depend on big chunks of money coming to the school because of a larger population.

Schools that have become affiliated charters are almost all located in the San Fernando Valley and on the Westside and in predominantly whiter and wealthier neighborhoods. That’s partly because those schools lost their Title 1 money when the district raised the percentage of low-income students needed to qualify.

This unique school configuration, which is not even outlined in the California Education Code, now seems to be on its way out. Statewide, 26 percent of schools use the affiliated model, according to the California Charter School Association. Most of the affiliated charters are concentrated in the Northeast and Central Valley region of the state (44 percent) with a small portion in Southern California (12 percent). CCSA considers affiliated charters as “charter schools in name only” compared to independent, autonomous charter schools.

AFFILIATED CHARTERS BY THE NUMBERS

Of the 53 affiliated charter schools in LA Unified there are three high schools, five middle schools and the rest are elementary schools.

Of the nearly 650,000 LA Unified students, 41,555, or about 6 percent, attend affiliated charters.

That’s compared to 107,000 enrolled at 221 independent charters, which are publicly funded and independently operated public schools.

Affiliated charter students are not included in the district totals as charter school students, even though the school may have “charter” in its name. They are included among the “regular school” totals because the funding still comes through the district.

A total average of 58 percent of LA Unified’s affiliated charter students met or exceeded the standards in the 2015 Smarter Balanced English Language Arts test, compared to 55 percent of the magnet students, 44 percent for the state, 39 percent for independent charters and 33 percent for the district.

In the math standards, 51 percent of the affiliated charter students met or exceeded standards compared to 44 percent of magnet students, 33 percent for the state, 28 percent for independent charters and 25 percent for the district.

Only 32 percent of the students at affiliated schools qualify for free or reduced-priced meals, compared with 83 percent at independent charters and 77 percent for the district overall. Some of the schools, like Canyon Charter in Santa Monica and Marquez Elementary Charter School in Pacific Palisades, have 3 and 6 percent socio-economically disadvantaged students, respectively.

The overall district’s demographics are 74 percent Latino, 8.4 percent African-American, 6 percent Asian and 9.8 percent white.

In the affiliated charter schools, 28 percent of students are Latino, 6.8 percent African-American, 9.5 percent Asian and 47.6 percent white. Statewide, as well as within the district, Asian and white students and those who are not from economically disadvantaged households scored significantly higher on the tests.

AFFILIATED CHARTERS BY LOCATION

Pick the wealthiest neighborhoods in the LA Unified borders, and you’ll likely find an affiliated charter school there. When broken up by neighborhoods, eight are in Woodland Hills, seven are in Northridge and five are in Sherman Oaks. A total of 43 are in the San Fernando Valley and nine are on the Westside, with one located near downtown.

That one affiliated charter school, in the Central district, is Dr. Theodore T. Alexander Science Center School, which ironically is named after the man credited with creating LA Unified’s magnet schools. Not a magnet, the Alexander Science Center does have the highest amount of socio-economically disadvantaged students of any affiliated charter (at 81 percent), and it has the lowest scores at 25 percent for English language arts and 13 percent for math. It has a CORE score of 45.

Most affiliated charter schools are in wealthier neighborhoods in part because the principals and teachers want to expand their curriculum to something more than what the district teaches, and their students are much different than those in the rest of the district.

“We don’t have as many English learners, and some of the district lessons don’t apply as much to our population,” said Joe Martinez, the principal of Carpenter Community Charter in Studio City, which has a 76 percent white population and 4 percent English language learners, with only 4 percent qualifying for free or reduced lunch. He has a school where people have faked their addresses so they can get in as a resident to the 92-year-old school that is surrounded by $1 million homes and within walking distance of the homes of George Clooney and Miley Cyrus. “We have found that being an affiliated charter has allowed us to try different and unique things, and it seems to be working.”

At more than 950 students, Carpenter is the largest affiliated charter elementary school and one of the oldest in the Valley. Parents and the principal applied for its charter in 2010. It was approved for renewal last year for another five years. The parents and teachers on their Governance Council explored other options before re-applying but chose to stick with the affiliated model.

“We have not found any drawbacks so far,” Martinez said. “When our five years ran out, we started looking at pilot and magnet school options, independent charter or even returning to the district. We looked at the next step for Carpenter and determined the affiliated model was the best one by far for us.”

Tamar Galatzan, the former school board member for District 3, helped Carpenter with its application at that time. She actively promoted the idea with dozens of other high-performing schools with Academic Performance Index scores exceeding the state’s target score of 800. (Carpenter had 943 at its peak; the tests were discontinued in 2013.) Most of the affiliated charters, 32 of them, are in District 3 and the next highest is 19 in Steve Zimmer’s District 4. Galatzan, who lost last year to Scott Schmerelson, encouraged small elementary schools to go the affiliated charter route and take advantage of block grant funding that was available at the time.

“A lot of these schools came together at the same time to apply and they had a strong record of performance and wanted to continue to be creative and continue to grow,” Cole-Gutierrez said. “The schools and their community wanted to continue to provide an innovative curriculum different from the rest of the district.”

WHY ISN’T EVERY SCHOOL AN AFFILIATED CHARTER?

Former LA Unified school board member David Tokofsky said he coined the phrase “affiliated” charter. Most other school districts call such a hybrid a “dependent” charter.

“No one wanted to be called a dependent school, so in some executive session at some point I suggested calling them ‘affiliated’ and it stuck,” Tokofsky recalled. Why wouldn’t every school want to become affiliated? Tokofsky said, “Not all schools are aggrieved. Not all schools need or want to change.”

Schools have to commit to the affiliated charter model, more than half of the teachers have to approve the idea, and the application process can take months if not years. Often, parents who are lawyers and grant writers volunteer their time to fill out the necessary paperwork to become an affiliated charter, which is another reason why fewer school communities in underprivileged neighborhoods with parents working multiple jobs seek to convert to the affiliated charter model.

Four years ago, the school board changed the Title 1 qualifications for schools to get extra funding for underprivileged children. It created a big dent in many school budgets, and schools in wealthier neighborhoods had to seek other ways to replace the steep loss of funding. Millikan Middle Affiliated Charter School in Sherman Oaks recorded a loss of $600,000 in one year.

Affiliated charter schools also received about $400 to $500 per student as a block grant when they were approved. But that state funding source changed and the block grants stopped two years ago. Many principals no longer saw the advantage of becoming an affiliated charter.

“When I submitted the application, the comments I would get from the district is ‘Why are you doing this, the funding is not there anymore?’ and I said we wanted to have more control over our curriculum,” said James Lee, the principal of Sylmar High School, which is the only school to apply to become an affiliated charter in the past two years. No other schools are even in the process of applying to become one. “We cared more about having the autonomy and didn’t do it just because of the money.”

Sylmar’s application was approved by the school board on May 10, and it will become an official affiliated charter school in July. Lee sees it making a big difference in the community’s perception of the school, especially in light of this month’s widely publicized schoolyard brawl.

“Just having the name ‘charter’ to the school will help us,” Lee said. “Even before the approval I’ve been getting estimates on changing the sign in the front of the school to add the word charter to it. I think it will bring a whole new attitude to the school to have that on the sign.”

Lee doesn’t understand why more principals don’t look at the affiliated charter model.

“I think the loss of the block grant funding has made it less palatable to become an affiliated charter,” Lee said. “But we have worked with what we have for a long time. Becoming an affiliated charter is a form of us branding ourselves in terms of being independent and able to design our educational curriculum and services to meet the needs of parents and our kids.”

For Sylmar, it has been a laborious four-year journey. It’s a far cry from when the principal came to the school in 2012 when it was considered an under-performing school. Already twice, the district had turned down the application for the school to restructure itself, and at one point before he came to the school, its affiliated charter request was denied.

“We had to be ready for the change, and this is the right time,” said Lee, who is following a Small Community Learning model that the teachers have adopted.

Affiliated charter schools must renew their application every five years, just like charter schools. Cole-Gutierrez cannot recall an affiliated charter ever failing to be renewed. The schools also have the option to convert back to a traditional school, but that only happened once. Only two schools, El Camino Real Charter High School and Pacific Palisades Charter High School, ever converted to an independent charter from affiliated.

When Sylmar High first discussed becoming an affiliated charter with the teachers, many were afraid it would affect their retirement or status with the district, but that’s not the case, as all UTLA agreements remain in place. At Sylmar, the initial vote was close, about 60 percent, but then the teachers did some investigating on their own.

“I gave them names of schools that were affiliated charters, like the other high schools, Chatsworth, Cleveland and Taft, and a couple them talked to teachers at the school and they didn’t even know they were affiliated charters,” Lee said. “Everything was essentially the same.”

In fact, the schools could use their discretionary money to pay the teachers more for extra work, some of the principals said.

But the common thought is that families also have to raise more money per student at affiliated charters to help the school, and that is another reason why they are in wealthier neighborhoods. At Carpenter, according to their Governance minutes, the school has raised $350,000 so far with an average gift of $948 per family. More than 20 families gave more than $3,000. A big fundraiser at the CBS Studios lot nearby every year, where they auction items from many of the celebrity families, and an annual golf tournament also raise money.

“I think there is more commitment to fundraising at an affiliated charter school, it comes with the territory,” Martinez said. “Of course, we never would or could require any family to contribute.”

Cole-Gutierrez said that all schools raise money to support their school programs, whether it’s for a full-time PE coach, more books for the library or supplemental art classes. “You cannot depend on family donations to be an affiliated charter, but the schools that are affiliated tend to have more engaged communities from the outset,” Cole-Gutierrez said.

Although it’s rarely chosen as a model, the schools that have gone affiliated don’t seem to want to change.

“When we first voted, 100 percent of the staff wanted to go affiliated charter,” said Martinez about his Carpenter teachers. In fact, two of them left to form their own independent charter schools after seeing the success. Now the faculty is learning to teach the students Singapore math and are trying innovative writing programs and even a daily relaxation exercise created by Goldie Hawn.

“I think the affiliate model has allowed to unify all the groups on campus and have greater transparency,” Martinez said. “It allows us to teach our children well.”

Coming next: profiles of Carpenter Community Charter School and the new Sylmar Charter High School.

In addition, the plan would potentially add a 20-day “winter intersession” for some students to go along with a 20-day summer school session.

An article about the different plans under consideration was posted in the newsletter of the Associated Administrators of Los Angeles (AALA) by Gerardo Loera, principal of Virgil Middle School and a member of the LAUSD Calendar Committee. The committee has been tasked by Superintendent Ramon Cortines to study different calendar options, and based on the committee’s work Cortines is expected to make a formal three-year recommendation to the school board in December.

The district always started the academic year in September after Labor Day before moving it up to early August in 2012. Supporters of the change, including former school board member Tamar Galatzan, touted the academic benefits that could come from an early start, in particular by giving high school students more time to prepare for standardized tests and college entrance exams. It also allowed the district to split the semesters around winter break.

Last year, the district started school on Aug. 12, its third year of an early start. But a chorus of criticism forced the school board to take another look at the issue back in February as it approached a deadline to approve a calendar for the 2015-16 school year. Critics of the early start date pointed to the intense heat of early August that students must endure, which is sometimes too hot for outdoor extracurricular activities.

The early date has also put extra pressure on some schools’ air conditioning systems, and according to a draft report by the LAUSD Calendar Committee, cost the district between $1.1 million and $1.8 million in extra energy bills each year from 2012 to 2014.

In response to the critics, the board voted 5-1 in February to move the start date up by one week, and this year students’ first day began on Aug. 18. However, the compromise pleased few on the board. Galatzan — who was defeated by Scott Schmerelson for the District 3 board seat in March — said, “This in-between thing is not serving the high schools who wanted it and the parents that don’t. I think we’ve just kind of made everyone unhappy.”

Several other board members also expressed their disapproval of the compromise.

One problem that arose during the board’s debate was that the district had not yet studied the early start date to see if it in fact had proven to be academically beneficial. That was one reason for the formation of the Calendar Committee.

Based on much of the academic information and studies that the draft report and Loera focused on, it appears the committee will be recommeding a return to an earlier start date, as the data points to an academic advantage by doing so.

The early start date from 2012 to 2104 resulted in a number of academic benefits to LA Unified’s students, according to the draft report. For one, grades were higher, with the percentage marked “C” or better rising each year, from 69.9 percent in 2011-12 — the last year of the September start — to 73.1 percent in 2014-15. Pass rates for the California High School Exit Exam — which has however been cancelled recently by the state — also rose, as did the number of students enrolled in AP classes.

Of the six plans currently being studied, only one has a post-Labor Day start date. Two would begin on August 6, two on August 13 and one on August 20. Four of the plans would have the semester end at winter break, while two would see the semester spill over to after the break.

That was quite a board meeting yesterday, with more emotion on display than Nixon or LBJ ever showed in announcing their decisions to leave the White House.

The first wave came in The Long Goodbye to Bennett Kayser, whose bid for a second term was thwarted by a member of the group he most detests, a charter school executive.

For more than 90 minutes, a parade of admirers praised Kayser as the conscience of the board — for standing up to former superintendent John Deasy, for supporting teachers no matter what, for opposing charters no matter what, for holding to his principles and for demonstrating how a neurological challenge, Parkinson’s disease, is no barrier to public service.

All well and good — although spending more than a third of a four-hour meeting on good-byes seemed a tad excessive, even for this board.

Maybe the farewell would not have seemed so gaudy were it not for the polar-opposite manner in which his colleague Tamar Galatzan finished her day.

She, too, lost last month, ending eight years of service on the board, twice as long as Kayser. She had requested no public ceremony, due in part, perhaps, to the lingering animus of members who could not abide by her loyalty to Deasy. She was as faithful to him as Kayser was to UTLA, the teachers union.

But political sympathies aside, it was stunning to see her disappear without anyone at least acknowledging her public service over the years, if not for holding to her principles.

No one from the board, including the other Deasy acolyte, Mónica García, said a word. Nor did anyone else in the room.

Poof . . . Gone . . . What was her name, again?

The other passion play was Superintendent Ramon Cortines’s weepy, halting speech — about the 2016 budget!

Conceding that the board can no longer pay for everything it wants — which it was willing to do under Deasy — he choked up through his remarks and bawled openly at the end after reminding listeners, “There are no more presents under the Christmas tree.”

It was odd in a way. This was the district’s most robust spending plan in years, nearly $8 billion worth, with thousands of teachers and other employees getting a raise for the first time since the Big Bang. Abandoned and neglected programs would be blooming back to life. New money to spruce up schools. More than 125 countries don’t have that much to spend annually. 

Yet the prospect of looming deficits and scores of unavoidable layoffs left him visibly shaken, so much so that he suggested he could serve only another six months, not the year he had agreed to.

More than a few observers watched him break down at the end, dabbing his eyes with tissue, and wondered if he were ill. Discrete questions brought an answer: No, he wasn’t suffering; he had just worked so hard on the budget and he really felt bad about the inability to rescind more layoff notices and the possibility, however remote, that the budget would not be approved.

The members loved him for it. Cortines, after all, is the district’s protector, the father figure, the un-Deasy. They missed no opportunities to thank him for his hard work, his collaborative management style, his willingness to take on the hard issues of running a bureaucracy as large and unwieldy as LA Unified is.

Imagine how long his farewell will be. Better bring a sleeping bag. And tissues.

Scott Schmerelson

In a stunning upset, Scott Schmerelson handily defeated two-term incumbent Tamar Galatzan in the race for LA Unified’s District 3 seat.

Schmerelson beat Galatzan with more than 3,000 votes, 55 percent to 45 percent.

“I am very happy, very excited, and I’m ready for my five-year term,” he told LA School Report late last night, referring to the extended term school board members will be serving following a voter approved measure aligning local elections with state and federal races.

While many observers predicted the outcome of the election in District 5 — between Bennett Kayser and Ref Rodriguez — would determine the future ideological balance of the seven member board, it is Schmerelson’s victory that ensures the so-called “reformers” will remain in the minority despite Kayser’s loss.

“I intend to be perfectly fair,” Schmerelson said, unwilling to describe himself as either pro-charter, pro-union, or pro-anything specific.

“I am not a vehement anti-charter person,” he explained, then launched into a lengthy speech about how many charters engage in deceitful practices dumping students with disciplinary problems or before important testing. His conclusion: “They really need to be closely monitored.”

The teachers union threw its support behind the veteran educator after the primary race in an effort to elect “anyone but Galatzan” according to UTLA PAC official, Marco Flores.

“He did come out of the blue,” Flores said, referring to Schmerelson’s unexpected second-place finish in the March election. “He’s not a candidate we went looking for but we’re lucky he came up.”

An hour before the final results had been tabulated Schmerelson fielded congratulatory hugs and handshakes from party-goers, putting down his cell phone to say “thanks” every two minutes. But even through the self-described elation, the jabs he endured from Galatzan’s campaign and the California Charter Schools Association PAC, still stung.

“I feel bad about a couple of the things that were said about me,” he said. Several attack ads depicted Schmerelson as a “Sacramento lobbyist” intent on taking money from children to give to administrators. Other flyers, sent to registered Republican voters, called him a Liberal.

“I know because I got one because I’m a Republican,” he said laughing.

“I’m not a politician and I’m not used to this telling of untruths,” he said.

Galatzan’s campaign had yet to issue a formal concession by late last night, but campaign consultant Jose Cornejo blamed voter apathy for her defeat.

“What can I tell you? It didn’t go our way,” he said. “You can only do so much to get people to go out and vote and turn out killed us.”

As far as Galatzan’s future plans go, Cornejo said, “She will continue to work hard on behalf of the students of LAUSD. That has always been her priority and will continue to be her priority until her very last day.”

Tamar Galatzan and Scott Schmerelson at District 3 Candidates Forum

As she arrived to the stage Monday night, Tamar Galatzan grabbed two bottles of water for the debate participants and handed one to her challenger, Scott Schmerelson, who smiled and thanked her.

The gesture set the stage for the evening, as both candidates for the LA Unified District 3 seat avoided any criticism of each other during a forum hosted by the Sherman Oaks Neighborhood Council.

Despite their opposing positions on many issues, the tone of the forum was so genial that it was easy to forget that the two are backed by powerful, deep-pocketed forces diametrically opposed to each other and poised to spend lots of money to take the other candidate out.

Galatzan, the incumbent endorsed by the California Charter School Association, finished atop a six-way race in the March 3 primary and now faces Schmerelson, the No. 2 finisher, in a May 19 runoff. Schmerelson was recently endorsed by the LA teachers union, UTLA.

Neither candidate directly criticized or even mentioned the other except for the few times they voiced agreement on an issue. Schmerelson did not have the UTLA endorsement during the primary race, but it was clear the new endorsement was not going to mean he will adopt the union’s more hard-edged approach to campaigning.

With below the belt tactics off the table, each worked hard to craft a positive self-image as a passionate advocate for LA Unified with a career and life experiences that added to their qualifications — Schmerelson, the veteran educator and administrator with the district; Galatzan, the hard-working parent already twice elected. Neither candidate challenged the other’s self portrait.

Schmerelson, now retired, repeatedly referred to his 35-year career with LA Unified as a teacher, counselor and principal and presented himself as the person with a deep and well-rounded resume in education with first-hand experience.

“My last experience, after retiring, I worked at Cleveland High School, which is a great school, and I taught a Spanish class there and I had 45 children in my class, and that was quite shocking to me,” Schmerelson said.

Galatzan, who is also a prosecutor with the city, described herself as a board member who fights as a representative of parents. She is also a part-time board member and was criticized for that fact by other primary candidates. But Galatzan said her part-time status is a positive.

“One of the things that’s been interesting is that there are some folks out there who think the only people who should serve on the school board are retired teachers and administrators. I don’t think that,” she said. “I think there is a role for parents on the school board. We are the customers. Our children are in our schools every day. I’m the only parent of school-aged kids on the board right now.”

The forum was moderated by Dan Schnur, executive director of the Unruh Institute of Politics of USC, and was attended by about 100 people at the Sherman Oaks Elementary School auditorium. He questioned the candidates about the role of charter schools, the hiring of a new superintendent, teacher evaluations and salaries, standardized tests and the use of bond money to purchase technology.

Despite Schnur’s hitting of all the top and most polarizing issues, the candidates played nice in their answers, and there were few, if any, surprises. Galatzan — who is reviled by many UTLA members for her support of the iPad program, charter schools and former Superintendent John Deasy — gave answers that would make most reform-minded, charter school advocates smile, while Schmerelson’s views would please any card-carrying UTLA member.

Galatzan said she is in favor of test scores being part of teacher evaluations, while Schmerelson is opposed. Galatzan said that seniority should not be the only factor when considering teacher layoffs, while Schmerelson said a seniority plan should be followed. Galatzan defended using bond money for technology upgrades, while Schmerelson said the ill-fated iPads-for-all program was a misuse of bond money. Galatzan said teacher tenure should be established in the three-to-five year range, while Schmerelson said the current rules of tenure after two years is correct.

One the issue of charter schools, the candidates gave more nuanced answers.

“There are some good charters schools, there are some bad charter schools. Overall, I think my job as a board member is to create high-quality public school options for all of our kids and all of our families,” Galatzan said.

Schmerelson said he wasn’t opposed to charters, but that the district’s oversight of them had been lax.

“Many, many charter schools are not having enough transparency to see actually what’s happening over there … You can see how we scrutinize every single penny that comes into the district. I never see the charter schools being scrutinized,” he said.

Scott Schmerelson

*UPDATED

Scott Schmerelson says he is “feeling pretty good” these days, and the longtime LA Unified educator, counselor and principal certainly has lots of reasons for it.

Schmerelson emerged from a logjam of five challengers to finish second in the March 3 school board primary election, good enough to make the May 19 runoff against District 3 incumbent Tamar Galatzan. She finished first with 40.2 percent of the vote (as of officials results announced today) but short of the majority needed to avoid the runoff.

Schmerelson moved on with with 20.4 percent, well ahead of Ankur Patel (12.8), Elizabeth Badger (10.8), Carl Petersen (10) and Filiberto Gonzalez (5.8).

But those also rans could become important factors in the runoff. With their support amounting to more than 40 percent of the overall vote, two of them are supporting Schmerelson in the runoff, and the two others say they are considering it.

“I invited them to lunch to talk and to kind of meet and thank each other in doing such a good job,” Schmerelson told LA School Report, noting that Gonzalez was not there but that they spoke on the phone later. “We all agreed that we were working for the same cause and were united. In other words, they were going to throw their votes and voters towards me, and they would encourage their people to be on my side.”

Official public support or endorsements have yet to materialize from all the challengers, but it does appear that none of them plans to endorse Galatzan or work against him.

Patel  said he plans to endorse Schmerelson, and Petersen has expressed his support in a press release and on social media. Badger said she is considering an endorsement, calling Schmerelson a “great candidate,” and Gonzalez said he is going to be talking to Schmerelson soon about a potential endorsement. Gonzalez also said on Twitter that he will not endorse Galatzan.

Even with full support of the other challengers, toppling Galatzan from her seat will be no easy task. She has already been elected twice, so her name recognition and support runs wide and deep through her district. She is also supported by the deep pockets of the California Charter Schools Association, Great Public Schools: Los Angeles and SEIU Local 99, which combined to spend $272,247 in support of her reelection, outside of the $37,314 her campaign itself has raised, which led the field in District 3.

Schmerelson has received no outside support from any political action committees, but he raised $31,609 for his primary campaign, second best in the District 3 race. More significantly, the teachers union, UTLA, appears serious about offering its support, as the executive committee of UTLA’s political action committee, PACE, has recommended to the full committee an endorsement for Schmerelson. If the endorsement comes, UTLA has the ability to throw hundreds of thousands of dollars behind Schmerelson.

Schmerelson is a registered Republican, and UTLA has rarely supported a non-Democrat over the last few decades. Since the primary election, he has tried to downplay his Republicanism as a non-factor.

“Republican and Democrat are party names, and when you say someone is a Democrat or a Republican, I hope it wouldn’t’ be taken as being at the extreme end of the name,” he said. “I certainly am very moderate, and I think UTLA realizes that.”

With or without UTLA support, Schmerselson said he is dedicated to running a civil campaign. In the two District 3 election forums, he was perhaps the most civil and restrained in criticizing Galatzan, while Gonzalez, Petersen and Badger essentially took a no holds barred approach. He said he does, however, plan on upping his criticism of the incumbent.

“It is not my style to hit below the belt, and I don’t ever want it to be. The word would be more, ‘direct,'” he said.

When asked the three things he would want to focus on the most as a board member, Schmerelson said his priorities are decreasing class size, increasing support staff and taking a a more narrow approach to how bond money is spent.

The last point, bond money, is where Schmerelson criticized Galatzan the most in the forums, pointing to her support of the controversial iPad program, which marked over $1.1 billion of bond money for use in purchasing iPads for every student and teacher in the district. Critics have said the use of bond money to buy iPads was an overstep and should have been used to fix up or build schools although district lawyers say it is within the law to use the money for digital devices.

The iPads-for-all program has crumbled after being recently cancelled by Superintendent Ramon Cortines in the wake of a grand jury investigation into the program’s procurement process.

“The biggest thing on my mind is the bond issue,” Schmerelson said. “People trust us with the schools, but once you loose the confidence of the tax payers, you are finished. They won’t vote for any more bonds. They are not stupid.”

The issues of reducing class size and increasing school personnel like counselors and librarians are less controversial, as most would support the ideas. But identifying the money to pay for it is more difficult. The district contends that it is facing a potential budget deficit next year of $160 million, and the school board is considering over 600 layoffs.

While Schmerelson didn’t offer specific ideas in how to massage the budget in favor of class size and personnel, he said the money is available.

“I still do think there is money to be used for the classroom to reduce class size and to add people,” he said. “Now you’re going to ask me, ‘Well, how to do know that?’ Well, just by looking at the facts and figures we have for revenues, I think revenues are going up.”

Schmerson and Galatzan are scheduled to face off in a candidate’s forum on April 13, hosted by the Sherman Oaks Neighborhood Council.

* Updated to reflect official election results, which were announced today.

* UPDATED

LA Unified’s election season moved into runoffs last night with no candidate in the three contested races winning a majority of votes for a board seat and the 5 1/2 year term that voters approved yesterday.

A low turnout of 8.2 percent sent three incumbents — Tamar Galatzan in District 3, Bennett Kayser in 5 and board President Richard Vladovic in 7 — into the May 19 general elections and gave two of them, Galatzan and Vladovic, Republican opponents.

George McKenna, running unopposed, won the District 1 seat.

Galatzan and Vladovic finished first in their races as expected. But it was a victory by Ref Rodriguez, a charter school executive, over Kayser that raised eyebrows the highest last night and made it a big night for the California Charter Schools Association.

In his first run for public office, Rodriguez won 38.6 percent of the vote to Kayser’s 35.8, assuring another 11 weeks of the proxy war between the charter association and the teachers union, UTLA, for greater control of the seven-member board.

“We are going to change LAUSD for the better,” Rodriguez said in a statement this morning. “Our children deserve high quality schools, and we are on our way to achieving that. I am very proud of the campaign we are running, and I’m looking forward to fighting and winning the general election.

The charter group worked mightily to deny Kayser a second term, spending almost $600,000 (through last month) for campaign material, including harsh attacks that suggested Kayser was a racist.

Kayser had almost equal support from the teachers as the only candidate running in the primaries that the union supported. UTLA spent more than $541,000 to help Kayser, its strongest ally on the board.

Andrew Thomas, a third candidate running as a moderate in District 5, won 19 percent of the vote.

Rodriguez’s victory by no means assures that he wins the seat in May. Kayser finished second in the primary four years ago and rebounded to win his first term, over Luis Sanchez.

In seeking a third term on the board, Galatzan won easily, with 39.4 percent of the vote. But there are two ways to look at the results: Five candidates opposing her combined for the other 60 percent of the vote, which foretells an upset in the runoff if voters coalesce behind the second-place finisher, Scott Schmerelson, a retired principal.

Schmerelson won his spot in the runoff with 20 percent, well ahead of the third-place finisher, Ankur Patel at 13. percent.

“This was a bumpy a ride but I’m so happy,” Schmerelson told LA School Report this morning. “One of the things that all of us running against Tamar spoke about was that no matter who wins we would be nice to each other so we could work together for the general election. So that’s what we’re doing now; we are discussing what strategy we’re going to use to have their backers now back me.”

Schmerelson’s finish poses another challenge to UTLA, if it wants to mount a serious fight for the seat. While Galatzan also benefited from spending by the state charter group ($94,000 through last month) and another reform organization, Great Public Schools: Los Angeles ($143,000), UTLA spent nothing on any of her challengers, and now faces a decision on whether to support a Republican in Schmerelson.

“It is a non-partisan election; what does it have to do with the kids at school?” Schmerelson said. “I may be registered as a Republican but what does that have to do with the kids of LA Unified?”

Addressing possible UTLA support for Schmerelson, Flores said,  “We never sat down and interviewed him so that still needs to happen. We’re going to sit down with him and see what he says.”

UTLA has the same decision to make in District 7, where Vladovic won an unusually close race. As a board member since 2007 and president since 2013, he had 42.9 percent of the vote to 37.7 percent for Lydia Gutierrez, another Republican, who had a strong third-place showing last year for State Superintendent of Public Education, winning nearly a million votes.

In challenging Galatzan, the union might get some political cover from Diane Ravitch, a former assistant Secretary of Education and staunch opponent of reform efforts and charter schools who endorsed Schmerelson in the primary. He also had the support of the Associated Administrators of Los Angeles, the principals’ union.

Vladovic, who did little campaigning, had the benefit of the charter schools association, which spent about $75,000 on his behalf. The runoff could boil down to which candidate appeals to the 19.3 percent who voted for a third candidate in the race, Euna Anderson.

What makes any runoff speculation dangerous is the utter lack of interest voters showed in selecting school board members. Galatzan’s total votes, 12,029, was the most any candidate received — in a district where more than 364,000 people are registered. Rodriguez’s total was 8,217 in a district of 274,000 registered voters and Vladovic got 4,554 of the 286,00 registered in his district.

Voter approval — by 76 percent — of aligning school board elections with state and federal elections was promoted as a way to increase voter turnout for board seats. It remains to be seen.

* Adds quotes from Kayser, Schmerelson and Flores

LA Unified school board member Tamar Galatzan

With less than 24 hours to go before the polls open, LA Unified school board candidate Carl Petersen said today that he filed several ethics complaints against Tamar Galatzan, the District 3 incumbent he is challenging in tomorrow’s elections.

Petersen levied the same complaints that were filed last week with the City Ethics Commission by candidate Filiberto Gonzalez, only Petersen filed them with LA Unified’s Office of the Inspector General, claiming that Galatzan improperly used her board office as part of her campaign in connection with a town hall meeting she held on Feb. 17. Petersen said in a press release he filed the “allegations” with the district because “the greater concern is the waste of badly needed education funds.”

Petersen also said he filed a complaint with the Ethics Commission that Galatzan’s campaign failed to disclose campaign expenses in a timely manner.

Galatzan’s campaign did not respond to a request to comment.

Tamar Galtatzan

One of Tamar Galatzan’s challengers in the LA Unified District 3 board race said today he has filed a complaint against her with the City Ethics Commission, charging that she improperly used her board office as part of her campaign.

Filiberto Gonzalez, a former Los Angeles City planning commissioner, cited two specific instances: the use of what he believes is campaign material at a Porter Ranch Neighborhood Council meeting on Feb. 13, and the use of the district’s robocall system to notify thousands of parents about a community meeting on the budget on Feb. 17 — a date too close to the election, he argues, although he could not cite any specific law that would have prohibited it.

Gonzalez first made the robocall charge at a District 3 forum on Feb. 17 when Galatzan skipped the event to hold the community meeting.  

“As candidates, we are all required to participate in campaign ethics training,” Gonzalez said in a statement. “She cannot say it was an oversight. Even worse, as a prosecutor with the City of Los Angeles, she should know better and hold herself to a higher standard.”

A Commission spokeswoman said she could neither confirm nor deny “the existence of any complaints or investigations due to strict confidentiality rules mandated by the City Charter.”

Galatzan’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

The District 3 race is the most crowded of the three contested school board elections on March 3. In seeking a third term, Galatzan is facing five challengers, most of whom have been sharply critical of her years on the board.

Gonzalez, who voted for Galatzan eight years ago, has been especially critical of her role in supporting the district’s iPad program, insisting in an interview, “She was a great supporter of the iPads even when it did not have support in our neighborhoods. It was wrong headed from the very beginning and yet she was the number one champion on that.”

*UPDATED

School board District 3 covers most of the western San Fernando valley from the Ventura county line to the 405 on its eastern boarder, with a cutout to include some of the tonier neighborhoods in the east valley. The district includes Chatsworth, parts of Woodland Hills, Northridge, Granda Hills, parts of Van Nuys and Sherman Oaks.

In all, there are 120 elementary schools, 42 middle schools and 41 high schools in LAUSD’s District 3. (See list here). Six candidates are vying for this seat.

CANDIDATE SNAPSHOTS

Tamar Galatzan (Incumbent)

Tamar Galatzan was first elected to the board in 2007 and has also worked as a prosecutor for the city of Los Angeles since 2002. She is a parent of two LAUSD students. While she has a reputation as a pro-charter, pro-reform movement board member and strong supporter of former Superintendent John Deasy, she also has a fiery independent streak, which was noted in her endorsement by the Los Angeles Times.

Organization Endorsements: California Charter School Association, the local chapter of the AFL-CIO, LA Times, SEIU Local 99.
Cash Raised: $35,714 (through 2/14)
SuperPAC $: $206,836.54 (through 2/14)
Age: 45
Education: J.D., University of California, Hastings College of the Law (1994);     B.A. in political science, UCLA, magna cum laude (1991)
Ballot Designation: School board member/Prosecutor
League of Women Voters Questionnaire: What is the single most important issue facing LAUSD today? The budget is unquestionably the most critical issue. Full answers here
United Way Questionnaire: Full answers here.
Website: Tamar2015.com

Elizabeth Badger

Elizabeth Badger is a parent of two LAUSD students, and this is her third run at public office in two years. She owns an automotive business in the San Fernando Valley and is CEO/Founder of Minority Outreach Committee, Inc. a nonpartisan non-profit. She is also a member of the Winnetka Neighborhood Council, the Los Angeles African American Women Political Outreach and was a delegate at the 2008 and the 2012 Democratic National Conventions.

Organization Endorsements:  None
Cash Raised: $14,804 (through 2/14)
SuperPAC $: None
Age: not stated
Education:  BA and MA in Political Science from CSUN; Graduate of USC’s Public Policy Institute
Ballot Designation: Children’s Advocate/Businesswoman
League of Women Voters Questionnaire: What is the single most important issue facing LAUSD today? Failing Education System. Full answers here.
United Way Questionnaire: Full answers here. 
Website:elizabethbadger.net

Filiberto Gonzalez

Filiberto Gonzalez is a parent of two LAUSD students and founder of SoCal Impact Consulting, a Woodland Hills-based consulting firm that specializes in non-profit fundraising and community outreach. He has also served on the North Valley Area Planning Commission. He also Filiberto founded Califorians for Safe Schools, an online community organized against child abuse. He has argued strongly for big teacher raises.

Organization Endorsements: National Association of Social Workers – California Chapter, CSUN Young Democrats, Bring Hollywood Home Foundation, National Organization for Women SFV/NELA chapter, United For Education
Cash Raised: $8,9307 (through 2/14)
SuperPAC $: None
Age: 40
Education: Masters in Social Work, University of Southern California; Bachelor of Arts, CSUN
Ballot Designation: Businessman/Professor
League of Women Voters Questionnaire: What is the single most important issue facing LAUSD today? LAUSD has been overcome by corrosive politics. Full answers here.United Way Questionnaire: Full answers here.
Website: http://www.gofiliberto.com

Ankur Patel

Ankur Patel is a graduate of LAUSD’s North Hollywood High School, attended UCLA and CSUN and serves as treasurer for the Northridge East Neighborhood Council. He has also taught English in China and South Korea, authored scientific papers and has worked as a union organizer. He ran for city controller in 2013 where he placed fifth out of six candidates with 5.7 percent of the vote.

Organization Endorsements:  None
Cash Raised: $23,373 (through 2/14)
SuperPAC $: None
Age: 29
Education: B.S. UCLA (Ecology, Behavior & Evolution), M.S. CSUN (Interdisciplinary) 
Ballot Designation: Teacher/Scientist/Entrepreneur
League of Women Voters Questionnaire: What is the single most important issue facing LAUSD today? The fact that not enough resources are getting to where they need to be — the classroom. Full answers here.
United Way Questionnaire: Full answers here. 
Website: http://patelforlausd.com

Ref Rodriguez

Ref Rodriguez, the charter school administrator who is challenging incumbent Bennett Kayser for LA Unified’s District 5 board seat, raised the most money of any board candidate since the last reporting period, $51,772, according to the latest figures posted by the City Ethics Commission.

Carl Petersen, one of five candidates challenging incumbent Tamar Galatzan in District 3, raised the least, $25.

While not dispositive of anything, the latest figures provide a sense of whose message is resonating with individual donors. The latest numbers reflect money raised from Jan. 17 through Feb. 14.

Clearly the District 5 race, which has been fueled by campaign material many view as objectionable, has energized donors the most. A second challenger to Kayser, Andrew Thomas, raised the second-highest amount of any non-incumbent in the district’s three contested elections, $26,056.

Kayser raised only $10,178. But money spent on his behalf by outside groups, most of it from the LA teachers union, UTLA, increased by another $42,603. An additional $29,464, almost all of it from the California Charter Schools Association, was spent for Rodriguez.

The charter group spent another $25,230 for Kayser attack material.

Among District 7 candidates, board President Richard Vladovic far out-paced his two rivals in raising money for the period. He got $28,897 in donations, compared with $9,125 for Lydia Gutierrez and $6,782 for Euna Anderson. The charter group and SEIU 99, the service workers union, also spent $82,977 to help Vladovic.

In District 3, Galatzan had a clear advantage in fund raising over her opponents, raising $21,409. Next were Scott Schmerelson, $12,780; Filberto Gonzalez, $6,616; Elizabeth Badger, $2,315; Ankur Patel, $1,627; and Petersen.

With the March 3 elections approaching, Galatzan is best positioned for campaign spending with $21,109 in cash remaining, more than twice any of her challengers. Rodriguez has $42,672, about eight times what Kayser has. In District 7, Anderson, who loaned her campaign $45,000, has $25,049 cash remaining, a bit more than twice Vladovic’s $11,218.

The report is a followup to a story first examined by NBC seven years ago, when it found lead levels in district drinking water 400 times above the amount declared safe by the EPA.

LAUSD proposed to fix the problem of aging lead pipes with a “Flushing Policy,” requiring school staff to run drinking fountains for 30 seconds every morning to remove lead built up overnight. But undercover video and internal documents obtained by NBC show that some schools are not flushing the fountains properly. Click here to see the story or click on the video below.

LAUSD student wins national tech award

Ana Hernandez, a senior in the Technology Academy at Foshay Learning Center, is one of 35 national winners for The National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT) “Aspirations in Computing” award.

The award, which comes with a $500 prize, a laptop computer and engraved trophies for winners and their schools, “honors young women who are active and interested in computing and technology, and encourages them to pursue their passions,” according to the NCWIT website. The 2015 winners will be honored at the Bank of America Technology Stars of the Future Showcase and Awards Ceremony on March 7 in Charlotte, North Carolina.

Last year, Hernandez was a national runner up and Southern California winner.

”When I found out that I won I was encouraged to do more,” Hernandez said last year, according to a LAUSD press release. “I am now determined to encourage more girls to do their best in these fields and let them know that this award and more is available to them.”

Teachers group performance: Galatzan = Marie Antoinette

A group calling itself Teacher Theater Street Parody of LAUSD held a performance in the parking lot in front of the Elks Lodge in Canoga Park before the District 3 school board candidate forum Tuesday. The teachers union, UTLA, has not endorsed a candidate in the race, but is clearly no fan of incumbent Tamar Galatzan, as it chose to share a photo and info about the performance on its Facebook page.

The photo shows “Queen Tamar Antoinette” in full regalia and two men dressed as FBI agents. One performer is holding a sign that reads “Let them eat iPads.”

The artistic statement, while perhaps bold and creative, has questionable levels of fairness and maturity, as the target or targets of a grand jury investigation — which led FBI agents to seize files in December related to the district’s iPad program — are unknown and appear to be aimed more at the district administration and not the school board. No one has been arrested as a result of the investigation. But Galatzan remains a strong supporter of the controversial program.

It is also important to note — these are teachers, after all — that historians say the phrase “Let them eat cake” was unfairly and incorrectly attributed to Antoinette by her enemies in an effort to discredit her with the French public. Hmm.

This is simply the latest of political attacks, including one leveled at board member Bennett Kayser that compared him to a ruthless movie villain gangster, that uses questionable levels of fairness and taste.

The post is embedded below.

The challengers at last night’s LAUSD District 3 school board forum.

* UPDATED

With incumbent Tamar Galatzan opting out of the second and final LA Unified District 3 board forum last night, her five challengers took full advantage, criticizing her as they made their cases for why they should be elected on March 3 instead of her.

Galatzan, who said she had a scheduling conflict, mingled in the aisles at the Elks Lodge in Canoga Park before leaving as the forum began.

With 90 seconds allowed for each answer, this second forum gave the candidates longer to respond, as opposed to last week’s debate, when they were limited to no more than a minute. The turnout, again, was fewer than 100.

Here are the main points each candidate made.

Scott Schmerelson 

The former LAUSD principal and teacher often touted his experience with the district. When asked how that would help oversee the district’s $7 billion budget, he pointed out that as a principal, he had overseen a budget of $10 million, and since it was part of the LAUSD budget, it was the most direct and relevant experience any candidate could point to.

Schmerelson also expressed no love for former superintendent John Deasy, but as the only candidate who had ever worked with him, he felt his criticism carried extra weight.

“What went wrong? Everything went wrong. A superintendent must be someone who will listen. A superintendent must be someone who has a heart. The man didn’t have a heart,” Schmerelson said.

Like every candidate, he favored raises for teachers, but he offered neither a specific number nor how to pay for them. On teacher evaluations, he said he put “zero credibility” in using test scores to evaluate teachers. He conceded that charter schools are here to stay, but that “there is nothing better than a traditional public school.”

Carl Petersen

Petersen bashed Galatzan early and often, sometimes ignoring a question’s substance to turn it into a critique of the incumbent. On the question of experience to handle a budget of billions, he said few people have it and pivoted to attacking Galatzan on her approval of the problematic MiSiS computer system.

When asked what qualities he would desire in a new superintendent, he opted to outline a future in which the superintendent would be stripped of many powers.

“The former superintendent was hired with the ability to make policy. This was an abdication of responsibility on the part of the board,” he said.

Petersen said he would be a board member who listens. He repeated his severe criticisms of the iPad program and teacher jail and said charter expansion was a result of district failure but that parents should still have the choice of charters.

Ankur Patel

Patel pointed to his experience as an LA neighborhood council member and treasurer as his best experience handling a government budget, but acknowledged it was only thousands of dollars, not billions.

Patel often quoted numbers and figures to demonstrate having done a lot of homework and research on the district.

When asked about his budget experience, he said, “Seven-point two billion dollar operational budget, but when you count the $2.6 billion capital part of the budget, the $1.1 billion internal service that has to do with how we pay our employees, the health care, those services, and about $900 million in debt services every year, the actual budget overall for LAUSD is closer to $11.5 billion.”

His suggested that student input be a part of teacher evaluations. He said he supported the new Common Core standards but problems continue from how it was rolled out. He also said that testing is not how students should be evaluated, and he is opposed to the expansion of charters.

Filiberto Gonzalez

Gonzalez was aggressive in attacking Galatzan for MiSiS and the iPad program, as well as making the most light of her absence from the event. He proposed raising the starting salary for teachers to $65,000 from the current $46,000 but offered no details on how to pay for it.

The only real fireworks of the night came during his closing remarks, in which he claimed Galatzan had used the district’s robo-caller to phone constituents and ask them to attend her budget meeting that evening, suggesting that she was using district resources to deter people from attending the debate.

The moderator, League of Women Voters Los Angeles President Elizabeth Ralston, attempted several times to stop him, asking that he refrain from “personal attacks.” That elicited boos from the crowd and some calling out that he should be allowed to continue. “I’m using my time appropriately,” he said to Ralston.

Elizabeth Badger

Badger had frequent criticisms of Galatzan. She also touted her experience as a business owner and her master’s degree in public policy from USC as relevant budget experience.

She argued that testing should only be part of teacher evaluations and pointed out, correctly, that the criteria for approving charters is set by the state, making the school board’s control over approving them limited.

Like Gonzalez, she dedicated her closing statements to criticizing Galatzan, asserting that the district needs a “full time defender, not a part-time prosecutor,” a reference to Galatzan’s part-time board member status and second job a city prosecutor.

* An earlier version suggested candidates gave opening statements. At this forum they did not.

Tamar Galatzan LAUSD School Board Member

This is the next in a series of profiles on candidates running in the March 3 primary for the LA Unified school board. Today’s focus is Tamar Galatzan, who is seeking reelection for the District 3 seat.

Incumbent Tamar Galatzan is at the center of the most crowded race for an LA Unified school board seat, with five challengers vying for the District 3 spot covering the West Valley.  But the 45 year-old, full-time LA city prosecutor and mother of two young boys isn’t fazed by the competition, even when they attack her for her part-time status on the board.

“I will put my record representing the district’s schools up against anybody’s,” she told LA School Report.

While a certain degree of confidence is expected from any candidate running for an elected position, it’s clear this is not merely a display of bravado by Galatzan, who can be fearless and downright confrontational when it comes to expressing her views on what’s best for the district’s student population. Her trademark move during some of the board’s most heated discussions is to shut off her microphone after her remarks, forcefully shove it away, then push her rolling chair away from the dais. It is very dramatic.

Since she was first elected to the board in 2007, Galatzan has cast several controversial votes going against the popular tide of her colleagues. And in many of these cases, she has explained, it is not that she necessarily opposes the resolution before the board, but rather the board’s attempt to weigh in on issues over which she argues it has no dominion.

Such was the case with her “first big vote,” she told LA School Report. The board was considering extending health benefits to part-time cafeteria workers. Only Galatzan and former board member Marlene Canter voted against it.

Her reason: “There are issues that are supposed to be bargained, and the board shouldn’t intervene and make a political decision to favor one side or the other in the middle of negotiations.”

And in the most recent school board meeting earlier this month, she was the only dissenting vote to allow district lawyers to do pro-bono work on student deportation cases, insisting that lawyers should do free, volunteer work “in their off time, not during work time.”

More evidence that Galatzan is not afraid to go against the grain is her vote last year banning “willful defiance” suspensions, a catch-all label for an assortment of misbehaviors. While the move was lauded by student advocates and others who believe that schools were overusing suspensions, Galatzan and Marguerite LaMotte questioned whether it would make things any better. She was also the lone voice opposing a recent motion making Ethnic Studies a mandatory graduation requirement and wrote an op-ed in the LA Daily News explaining why.

She even lead a drive to censure Board President Richard Vladovic, after district employees accused him of sexual harassment and verbal abuse. In the resolution she drafted, Galatzan wrote the harassment charges against Vladovic amount to “conduct that has brought dishonor to himself, the School Board, and the Los Angeles Unified School District.” It also demanded that Vladovic “publicly acknowledge what has taken place, take responsibility for his actions, and commit to abiding by District policies and behaving in a professional manner.”

The motion failed to get a vote because no other board member seconded the resolution.

But Galatzan has also been a team player. For several years she was part of a pro-charter voting bloc on the board that included Monica Garcia, issuing in an explosion of charter schools under first, Ramon Cortines‘s then John Deasy’s leadership. She remains a strong voice on the board for parental choice through charters.

It is her participation on Team Deasy that has led to much of the criticism from her current challengers. In recent weeks, all five of them  — Elizabeth Badger, Filiberto Gonzalez, Ankur Patel, Carl Petersen, and Scott Schmerelson — have attacked Galatzan’s allegiance to Deasy, contending that her loyalty led her to become the biggest cheerleader for the district’s botched and possibly illegal iPads-for-all plan.

While she concedes the roll-out was a “frustrating process,” plagued by snafus, she says “what the board was told and what the Bond Oversight Committee was told was that this is what students and teachers wanted.”

“It turned out later that not all of that information was true,” she added. “So we slowed everything down and we’ve taken other steps to try to fix it.”

Additionally, she continues to champion the push for more technology in the classroom, an issue she says voters in her district support.

Looking ahead, Galatzan said she plans to spend the next three years ensuring the district balances its budget. “We need to see how the Local Control Funding Formula is working out and try to stabilize the funding at a number of schools that had huge budget shortfalls as a result,” she said.

District 3, a mostly middle class to affluent region of LA Unified, is one of a handful of areas within the district that could lose state funding because it enrolls fewer low-income students, foster youth, or English Language Learners, which bring extra dollars to schools. That has led to a steady flow of traditional public schools converting to affiliated charter schools.

As a result, her harshest detractors, including the teachers union, UTLA, have accused her of abandoning traditional public schools. But Galatzan says, “There’s a not a lot of control that we as a district have over schools that want to become charters. We can only deny a charter for five reasons, and if [a school] has the money to fund a charter and a well thought out plan, there’s not so much we can do.”

Candidates at the District 3 debate last night at North Hollywood High. (Credit: United Way)

With six candidates crowding the stage, the LA Unified District 3 school board debate last night more often resembled a game show, as candidates were forced to limit answers to either a minute or 30 seconds.

Incumbent Tamar Galatzan, who is seeking a third term in the March 3 elections, seemed to be thinking the same thing when she was asked about the complicated and controversial issue of the “teacher jail” system.

“In 30 seconds?” she said, laughing a little to herself as the crowd joined her.

As five challengers jockeyed for position in efforts to define themselves in the most crowded of the four board elections, Galatzan’s track record was a frequent topic of conversation and critique. Challengers Elizabeth Badger Bartels, Filiberto Gonzalez and Carl Peterson all lobbed a number of criticisms at her, while Ankur Patel and Scott Schmerelson mostly stuck to their own ideas or experience.

The turnout at North Hollywood High was low and appeared to be fewer than 100. If anyone won over parts of the small crowd it was impossible to tell as the audience was directed not to applaud or make any noise.

What follows below is a breakdown of the debate, from each candidate’s perspective.

Tamar Galatzan

The most frequent criticism was her enthusiastic support of the controversial $1.3 billion iPad program and former Superintendent John Deasy.

Galatzan responded to the iPad criticism by acknowledging its problems while defending its impact and continuation. She did not respond to Gonzalez’s claim that she was a member of an ad hoc committee that oversaw the Common Core Technology Program’s rollout and never attended a single meeting.

Galatzan made a case for her reelection by pointing out that despite heavy budget cuts, graduation rates and other student achievement measures had risen during her terms on the board. She argued that since improvements came under tough times, she was the right choice in the current economic upswing.

When asked if she was a more reform-oriented or union-oriented thinker, she pointed to the Los Angeles Times’ endorsement of her that characterized her as the most independent board member, leaving out the part that said the endorsement came with “misgivings.”

Elizabeth Badger Bartels 

Bartels spent most of the night criticizing Galatzan, but an attempt at a critique turned into the biggest gaffe of the evening when she claimed she wrote a letter to Galatzan asking for help for her special needs child nine years ago but got no response. Galatzan correctly responded that she wasn’t even a board member nine years ago. Instead of correcting her math, Bartels insisted, “Oh yes you were.”

Bartels said Deasy was allowed to “run amok.” She had frequent criticisims of the iPad program and said she supported spending money on computer labs. Like all the candidates, Bartels said she supported a raise for teachers, but she did not suggest a specific amount or offer ideas on how it would be paid for. She also stated her independence from either reform- or union-oriented ideals.

Filiberto Gonzalez

Gonzalez was the most aggressive in attacking Galatzan and perhaps the most effective in that he used specific examples. He pointed to her role in blocking the reappointment of Stuart Magruder to the bond oversight committee and claimed she gave a different answer about truancy at the debate than she gave at a recent Chatsworth Neighborhood Council meeting. Galatzan countered by saying she was talking about different topics and his characterization was unfair.

Gonzalez split the difference on the iPad program, saying the money spent on Internet upgrades at schools was worhtwhile, but he opposed the purchasing of iPads. He was also the challenger who proposed the most specific ideas, such as returning to “peer assisted review” for teacher evaluations.

He voiced general opposition to the expansion of charters and several times seemed to be attempting to make the case that he was the candidate for union-oriented voters.

Ankur Patel

Patel avoided criticism of Galatzan, focusing more on himself and his views. He said increased focus on libraries and computer labs was preferable to iPads and the district could learn from studying successful charters. He said getting rid of charters at this point was not likely. He also said students should have a role in teacher evaluations, and as a board member he would direct more resources directly into the classroom.

Patel also said he was “in the middle” between the reform and union camps.

Carl Petersen

Petersen spent a lot of the night criticizing Galatzan. He said the board failed to successfully oversee Deasy, was strongly against the iPad program — even belittling it at times — and made strong statements against charter school expansion. He also said teacher jail was overused.

On the issue of teacher vs. reform, he said he would be a representative of parents. He was the only candidate to bring up MiSiS, the district’s troubled computer system, and criticized the district for going forward with it when MiSiS was “not ready for primetime.”

Scott Schmerelson 

Schmerelson rarely criticized Galatzan and instead often referred to his vast experience as an LAUSD principal. He pointed out that Galatzan’s LA Times endorsement was “lukewarm” and that he was mentioned as an “intriguing” alternative.

He was heavily critical of Deasy’s management style, voiced support for peer review as a means to evaluate teachers, and said he supported the iPad program but was critical of Deasy’s bidding process. He said the district could learn from charters but that district schools could beat them if given more authority. He also avoided being characterized as either reform or union and said it was important the next superintendent be independently minded to avoid future reform vs. union battles.

LAUSD school board member Tamar Galatzan

* UPDATED

A scheduling conflict is depriving another candidate forum of an incumbent LA Unified board member.

A Feb. 17 event sponsored by the League of Women Voters of Los Angeles may include only a short appearance by Tamar Galatzan, who is seeking a third term as the Valley-based District 3 representative. Her office said she had previously scheduled a community meeting focused on the district budget and may only be able to attend the forum long enough to give an opening statement.

“We never got an official invitation that said this is the date of the forum,” said Barbara Jones, Galatzan’s chief of staff. “We had already scheduled a town meeting on the budget.”

David Uranga of the Northridge West Neighborhood Council, a co-sponsor, said he had notified Galatzan in December that a forum would be held on Feb. 17. He said he later learned that Galatzan did not receive the same participating agreement that the other candidates got.

“It was a miscommunication with the League of Women voters,” he said.

Galatzan, who was first elected to the board in 2007, is facing five challengers in the March 3 elections. Only two candidate events have been scheduled for her District, one on Feb. 12 at North Hollywood High School and the Feb. 17 forum.

Jones said that Galatzan schedules an annual community meeting to discuss budget issues, and the one this year, at Holmes Middle School, had been put on her calendar on Jan. 22. She said two district officials who were invited to join the meeting, Edgar Zazueta and Cheryl Simpson, confirmed their availability on Jan. 27.

Zazueta is the district’s chief lobbyist; Simpson is the deputy budget director.

Jones said her office only learned of the form last week. An effort to reach the League of Women Voters for comment was unsuccessful.

The candidate forum is scheduled to begin at 6 o’clock and continue for 75 minutes. Galatzan pushed the start of the community meeting to 6:30 so that she could attend the start of the forum.

Galatzan is the second incumbent running into a scheduling problem. District 5 representative Bennett Kayser, a strong ally of the teachers union, UTLA, cancelled his participation in two forums sponsored by the United Way-Los Angeles over what his office called “scheduling conflicts.” 

The LA Times questioned whether politics could have been a factor in Kayser’s decision that the United Way and some of the community groups serving as co-sponsors often disagree with his policies.

* Adds comment from co-sponsor Northridge West Neighborhood Council

]]> https://www.laschoolreport.com/scheduling-conflict-cutting-into-galatzans-time-at-candidate-forum-lausd/feed/ 10 https://www.laschoolreport.com/principals-union-endorses-schmerelson-and-3-incumbents/ https://www.laschoolreport.com/principals-union-endorses-schmerelson-and-3-incumbents/#comments Fri, 06 Feb 2015 20:39:45 +0000 http://laschoolreport.com/?p=33517

Scott Schmerelson

* UPDATED

The LA Unified principals’ union, Associated Administrators of Los Angeles, AALA, decided last night to endorse three of the four incumbents in the March 3 school board elections.

The exception is Scott Schmerelson, a former teacher and administrator who is one of five people challenging Tamar Galatzan in District 3.

Judith Perez, the AALA president, said Schmerelson won unanimous approval of the Representative Assembly, which voted on recommendations of a vetting panel from AALA’s political action committee.

The Assembly also approved endorsements for George McKenna in District 1, Bennett Kayser in District 5 and Richard Vladovic in District 7 — none of them a surprise. McKenna is running unopposed, and the two others had won AALA’s endorsement in previous board runs.

Among LA Unified’s other major labor partners, SEIU Local 99 endorsed all four incumbents, and UTLA, the teachers union, has endorsed only McKenna and Kayser.

Schmerelson, who spent 35 years in various educational capacities, was chosen for his overall understanding of how schools work and what students need, Perez said. “He also knows that administrators have been overwhelmed and overworked and not given adequate tools to get their jobs done,” she told LA School Report.

Four years ago, AALA also chose a challenger to Galatzan in Louis Pugliese.

Schmerelson said he excepted the endorsement on the strength of his close relationship with AALA, including his years as a member of its executive board. He was also a Secondary Director.

“I interacted with fellow administrators who had questions about memos, directives and communications from supervisors,” he told LA School Report in an email. “My goal was to be sure that all AALA members were treated fairly and that LAUSD supervisors followed the contract. I also would like to add that I was an advocate for other personnel at my schools including SEIU Local 99 members and [California School Employees Association] members. My connection with them was to be sure that they too were being treated fairly and that their supervisors were following the contract.”

Beyond the endorsements, AALA approved donating the maximum $1,100 to each of the candidates in contested races.

Perez said her organization interviewed all the candidates but one, Filiberto Gonzalez, another of Galatzan’s challengers, who did not respond to an interview request, she said. Each candidate was asked the same questions.

She said Vladovic won “a substantial majority” for the endorsement, following what she describe as “a spirited discussion.”

She said that “time and again he has supported out members. He won’t agree with us on every issue, and we don’t expect him to, but he talks to us, he shares our concerns and he engages with us.”

* Adds comments from Schmerelson.

Bennett Kayser

After suddenly pulling out of two forums last week, Kayser is appearing in the wake of a recent attack mailer that questioned his support for Latino students.

The two-term board member, who is closely allied with the teachers union, said he cancelled due to scheduling issues, but an editorial in the  LA Times questioned whether politics could have been a factor: the forums were hosted by the United Way-Los Angeles and ten other community and education groups that often don’t see eye to eye with Kayser.

One of his opponents, educational consultant Andrew Thomas also canceled, leaving Ref Rodriguez, a 43-year-old community organizer and charter school founder to discuss issues on stage, alone. The controversial mailer, sponsored by the California Charter Schools Association, supported Rodriguez.

Here is a list of the upcoming school board forums. An asterisk denotes the incumbent.

BOARD DISTRICT 3:
Canoga Park, Chatsworth, Northridge, Winnetka, Reseda, Lake Balboa, Sherman Oaks, West Hills, Van Nuys, Studio City, North Hollywood

Candidates:  Tamar Galatzan, Elizabeth Badger, Filiberto Gonzalez , Ankur Patel, Car Petersen, Scott Schmerelson

       Thursday, February 12, hosted by United Way in North Hollywood; 6 p.m. Details  here.

       Tuesday, February 17, hosted by League of Women Voters and neighborhood        councils in Canoga Park; 6 p.m. Details here.

BOARD DISTRICT 5:
Atwater Village, Glassell Park, Eagle Rock, Mt. Washington, Cypress Park, Highland Park, Montecito Heights, El Sereno, Lincoln Heights, East Los Angeles, South Gate, Cudahay, Maywood, Huntington Park

Candidates: Bennett Kayser, Ref Rodriguez , Andrew Thomas

Thursday, February 5, hosted by ARC and neighborhood councils in Eagle Rock; 7 p.m. Details here
Tuesday, February 10, hosted by United Way in Huntington Park; 6 p.m. Details here. (Kayser has cancelled)
Wednesday, February 11, hosted by LA-32 Neighborhood Council in El Sereno; 6 p.m. Details here.

Wednesday, February 18, hosted by the Mount Washington PTA and other Mount Washington-focused organizations in Mount Washington; 6:30 p.m. Details here.

BOARD DISTRICT 7:
San Pedro, Wilmington, Harbor City, Carson, Harbor Gateway, Lomita, Garden, Willowbrook, Watts

Candidates: Richard Vladovic, Euna Anderson and Lydia Gutierrez.

Friday, February 6, hosted by United Way in Wilmington; 6 p.m.
Details here.

Ankur Patel

This is the next in a series of profiles on candidates running in the March 3 primary for the LA Unified school board. Today’s focus is Ankur Patel, a candidate for the District 3 seat.

At 29-years old, Ankur Patel is the youngest candidate running for the LA Unified School Board, and he’s using that as a campaign selling point.

“I’m young. I have the energy to lead and I’m a quick learner,” he told LA School Report, adding that among all six people running for the District 3 board seat covering San Fernando Valley he is the most recent graduate of the LA Unified public school system.

Patel grew up in the Valley, attending public schools from elementary through high school, then moved on to UCLA for undergrad. He returned to Cal State Northridge for a masters degree focusing on public transportation.

“I have been through it and I know first hand what it’s like,” he said, seizing on a key difference he sees between himself and the incumbent, Tamar Galatzan, and four other challengers in the March 3 elections.

Some other differences: Patel considers himself an independent who won’t stand for the rampant expansion of charter schools, the opposite of what he says Galatzan has encouraged.

“We have a great opportunity with our charter schools,” he explains. “They are a testing ground for new ideas but now let’s see how they’re doing on a year-to-year basis.”

Charter school expansions are a contentious issue in this part of the Valley. Board District 3 has had the highest growth of charters in the last five years, to 48 from 16. And most are previously traditional public schools that converted to charters when the formula for Title 1 funding changed. Now, nearly all Title 1 schools, which receive federal dollars for enrolling a majority of low-income students, are affiliated charters.

“It’s the responsibility of the board to stop and study the data that shows that charters are really working,” he said.

Patel’s take on the role of technology in the classroom also stands in stark contrast to that of Galatzan. While the two-term board member supported the district’s billion dollar one-to-one iPad program, Patel says, “The priority should be on the classroom.”

He supports reducing class size and raising teacher pay as the means to recruit and retain the best and brightest teachers.

While he’s never taught within the district, he was an English teacher in South Korea and China, which is why he identifies with local teachers’ struggles. “I had anywhere from one to 30 student in my classrooms so I really learned about the day-to-day challenges and what it means to be a teacher,” he said.

Referring to UTLA’s recent salary demands of an 8.5 percent raise, Patel said, “Teachers are being very reasonable. Meanwhile, administrators are the ones getting raises. That has to change.”

Despite his views on charters and his support for issues important to teachers, the teachers union, UTLA, has not endorsed him or any other candidate in the District 3 race. That could change.

So far, Patel has out-fundraised all five of his opponents, including Galatzan, with $21,746 in his war chest, according to the most recent data provided by the LA City Ethics Commission. The total includes $10,000 he loaned himself and another $5,300 from other people with the surname “Patel.” He says he’s done a good job of tapping into his “education circles” and now plans to move into getting support from neighborhood council members.

And if you live in his area of the Valley, you should expect a personal visit, he said, adding, “I am sending out glossy mailers and showing up on front doors.”