Two more people this week entered the March 7 race for LA Unified school board.

Gregory Martayan will join Nick Melvoin in challenging board President Steve Zimmer for his District 4 seat. And Joanne Baltierrez-Fernandez joins one other challenger in seeking an open seat in District 6.

Martayan and Baltierrez-Fernandez filed with the city Ethics Commission on Tuesday an intent to raise money for their respective races. Candidates officially file to run for the seats in November.

Zimmer has represented school board District 4, which includes the Westside and Hollywood, since 2009. In his latest re-election bid, he won with 52 percent of the vote.

Melvoin has taken a wide early lead in fundraising. The latest campaign finance records show Melvoin has raised $124,344 from Jan. 1 through June 30. Records show that Zimmer raised $7,304 in the same period.

Melvoin touted grassroots support for his campaign.

Zimmer said he has been focused on statewide ballot measures in the Nov. 8 election, including Prop. 55, an extension of income taxes on the wealthy for public education, and Prop. 58, which would repeal a law that prohibits non-English languages from being used in public schools. Zimmer said he is also working to elect Democrat Hillary Clinton as president.

Martayan did not immediately return a request for comment.

In the board District 6 race, where Monica Ratliff is not seeking re-election as she is running for Los Angeles City Council, Baltierrez-Fernandez joins Araz Parseghian in running for the seat. The district encompasses the east San Fernando Valley.

Neither candidate has reported any fundraising or spending to the Ethics Commission. Both just filed their intentions to run this month.

Baltierrez-Fernandez unsuccessfully ran for the 39th District state Assembly seat occupied by Patty Lopez. She came in fourth in the June primary.

Baltierrez-Fernandez, who served on the San Fernando City Council from 1994 to 1999, said Friday that as she was campaigning for the state Assembly seat, many LA Unified school district issues came up.

She is a mental health clinician and said she sees that there is a need for more mental health services in the public school system.

“Children can’t learn if they’re angry, depressed or worried,” she said.

The other seat up for election is in board District 2 occupied by Monica Garcia since 2006.

Four candidates have filed paperwork with the Ethics Commission to raise money to run for the seat, which covers East LA, Pico-Union, downtown Los Angeles and its surrounding neighborhoods.

Garcia has dominated early fundraising, the latest campaign finance records show. Seeking her third term on the seven-member board, Garcia collected $119,858 in donations between Jan. 1 and June 30. One challenger, Carl Petersen, raised $805 in the same period.

Other candidates for the seat are Berny L. Motto, Walter Bannister and Manuel “Manny” Aldana Jr., who all filed their paperwork within the past two weeks.

Nick Melvoin

*UPDATED

The candidate challenging LA Unified board President Steve Zimmer for school board has raised more money early on in the March 7 election campaign than the incumbent did in his entire re-election bid three years ago, according to city campaign finance records.

Nick Melvoin announced this week that as of the June 30 filing deadline, he has raised $124, 344. Records show that Zimmer raised just $7,304 in the same period.

“I’m grateful to all the individuals who have supported this campaign so far,” Melvoin said in a statement. “I’ve just begun to share my vision for improving public education in Los Angeles, and I look forward to working on behalf of all the communities in the 4^th District to turn those plans into real change.”

Melvoin noted that many of his campaign contributions were $100 or less, but about 30 percent of the donors who gave more than $100 live outside California, records show.

The early filings indicate that money will likely be pouring into this race, as it has in previous elections for school board seats.

But money wasn’t the deciding factor in Zimmer’s previous reelection bid. He won with 52 percent of the vote even though he was outspent by his opponent.

Zimmer said he is “very focused” on November, specifically the passage of statewide ballot measures Prop. 55 and Prop. 58 and the election of Hillary Clinton as president. Prop. 55 is an extension of income taxes on the wealthy to fund public education under Prop. 30 that was passed by voters in 2012. Prop. 58, the California Multilingual Education Act, would repeal a law that prohibits non-English languages from being used in public schools.

“There will be plenty of time to talk about the looming battle for control of the school board and the obscene amounts of money that will be raised and spent on that struggle,” Zimmer said in an email. “For now, as Michelle Obama said this week, ‘We have important work to do.'” 

It is early in the citywide election season. The primary is March 7. The general election will be held May 16. If no candidate receives more than 50 percent of the votes in the primary, the top two vote-getters will compete in the general election.

Melvoin launched his campaign in February. So far, no one else has entered the race. Candidates officially file for the race in November but can begin to raise money.

In his previous reelection bid in 2013, Zimmer raised a total of $122,000. His opponent, Kate Anderson, brought in $263,603. Independent expenditure committees poured nearly $2.7 million into the race.

The school board races that year received national attention and money from outside donors like former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who gave $1 million to a coalition formed by then-Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa that donated money to the three school board races and supported a slate of candidates. Villaraigosa’s group opposed Zimmer.

Two other school board seats are up for reelection next spring. Longtime board member Monica Garcia, who was first elected in 2006, is seeking reelection in board District 2. She is being challenged by Carl Petersen. Petersen ran in 2015 for the school board District 3 seat and came in 5th place in the primary. (Scott Schmerelson won that seat.) The city Ethics Commission has not posted campaign finance reports for Petersen or Garcia on its website.

School board member Monica Ratliff will not seek reelection and has opted to run for City Council. No one has announced an intention to run for the open board District 6 seat in the East San Fernando Valley.

So far no independent expenditure committees have spent any money in the school board races.

School board District 4 includes the west side of Los Angeles to Hollywood.

In a news release, Melvoin touted that 70 percent of his campaign contributions came from donors who gave $100 or less. In total, 824 individuals gave donations, according to Melvoin’s campaign.

Campaign Finance records show that of the 489 individual donors to his campaign who gave more than $100, 144 reside outside California.

Among the notable donors was philanthropist Eli Broad, who gave $1,100. Broad, who lives in Los Angeles, has previously given to LA Unified school board candidates. Other donors to Melvoin included attorneys, college professors, consultants, film executives, investors and educators.

Of the 30 donors who gave to Zimmer’s campaign this reporting period, nine were LA Unified employees. All but one of the donors live in Southern California. Zimmer, a former LA Unified teacher, was reelected to his second term as board president earlier this month.

Melvoin spent $24,657 during the reporting period. He has $101,000 cash on hand.
Zimmer spent $2,523 and has $6,185 cash on hand, records show.

In his previous re-election campaign, Zimmer was backed by UTLA, the teachers union. His opponent was backed by groups that support charter schools. Zimmer has not taken a hardline position against charter schools and votes both ways when charter school applications go before the board. He was praised by charter school leaders for a speech he gave Saturday at a best practices forum promoting inclusiveness between district and independent charter schools.

*Updated with comments from Steve Zimmer. 

*Updated to clarify the number of donors to Melvoin’s campaign. 

Representatives from charter schools line up outside LAUSD headquarters for this month’s board meeting.

By Nick Melvoin

Last week’s Los Angeles Unified School Board meeting was a political circus. Scores of parents, students and advocates in a packed boardroom vied for a chance to speak as the board debated their futures in real time. And while the politics may interest an arm-chair social scientist—“everyone is in such a bunkered battleground” as board President Steve Zimmer put it, before climbing back into his bunker and abstaining on the most contentious vote of the day—our children deserve better than a trip to the circus. Putting aside the merits of the issues discussed, the manner in which the board makes its decisions—and, superficially at least, invites community input—is absurd.

Parents, students and teachers waited more than eight hours to be given a chance to speak. And their futures were left to a process by which the board “cobble[d] together a plan, concocting at least half a dozen proposals and amendments during a lengthy and at times contentious discussion.” And this comes months after the school had to submit their petition.

Unfortunately, dysfunction is the norm, not the exception, for school board meetings. When schools are up for renewal, parents—many of whom have to take hours if not the entire day off work to advocate for their children—often line up starting at daybreak. In many cases, they don’t speak until late in the day, if at all. Parents and community stakeholders are left outside for hours or are relegated to an “overflow” room where they can watch the board meeting (unless, of course, the live stream doesn’t work). And despite stories of parents who are unable to speak after hours of waiting, board members at times let their supporters speak even when resolutions are postponed or abandoned.

Democracy is messy, but it doesn’t have to be dysfunctional. And despite lip-service about the need to engage parents and the community, nothing says “we don’t want your input” more than making parents line up at 5 a.m. to maybe, just maybe, get two minutes to speak before midnight.

When I was a teacher, I streamlined processes to ensure instructional time wasn’t lost and my students and I had a clear understanding of what was expected of us. I encourage the school board to do the same.

Here are a few ideas for new processes that could increase parent engagement and allow for more productive board meetings.

1)    Enforce a “time certain” for agenda items, so that parents and other stakeholders don’t have to line up at dawn to speak for an item that won’t be discussed until 5 p.m. For example, the public would know in advance that Resolution A is being discussed from 1:15-1:25 p.m. This way speakers would have a window in which to advocate, and then could go on with their days.

2)    Allow speakers to sign up online. The current process, which seems to change depending on the mood of the board, requires attendees to pull a “speaker card” once they get to the board meeting, resulting in a mad dash for cards. A few days before the meeting, interested speakers should be able to sign up online and state their connection to the issue being discussed. If there are too many speakers for slots, the board could lottery them in a way that ensures stakeholders from different sides of an issue are heard.

3)    Rotate meeting locations throughout the district. Rotating meetings throughout the district’s enormous geographic area would make it easier for parents, students and teachers to attend. And by using larger venues, such as a school’s auditorium, meetings could accommodate many times the number of attendees as the current board room. I would also consider scheduling agenda items that affect a particular community on dates when the board meeting will be held in or near that community. The board may also consider adjusting the starting times for meetings, to make it more convenient for working parents, students and teachers to attend.

4)    Ensure that proposals are crafted before a meeting and not during, so that meetings are a time for informed debate and not ad hoc policymaking. We have to work within the confines of the Brown Act, but it’s hard to imagine giving a proposal its due diligence in the few minutes between hearing it and voting on it.

Any one of these reforms would allow the board to function more efficiently and ensure that parents, students and teachers are respected as members of the decision-making process.

If readers have more suggestions, the next board meeting is April 12th. I’ll see you there at 5 a.m.

Nick Melvoin, a former LAUSD middle school teacher, is an attorney, teacher organizer and candidate for LAUSD School Board in District 4.

Nick Melvoin

The 2017 LA Unified school board elections are still more than a year away, but that isn’t stopping Nick Melvoin from officially throwing his hat into the ring of the District 4 race.

The District 4 seat is currently held by board President Steve Zimmer, who has yet to officially declare he will be running for a third term. In next year’s two other board races, District 2 and District 6, no challenger or incumbent has officially declared candidacy, making Melvoin the first to jump into 2017 school board election waters.

Melvoin, of Brentwood, graduated from Harvard-Westlake in 2004 and then Harvard and earned a master’s from Loyola Marymount University and a law degree from New York University School of Law. At 30, if elected he would become the youngest member of the board.

Melvoin started his career working as a teacher for two years in LA Unified’s Edwin Markham Middle School through the Teach For America program. He has also worked as a legal clerk for the American Civil Liberties Union of Southern California, as director of policy, communications and associate counsel for Great Public Schools Los Angeles, a consultant to Educators 4 Excellence and is currently a consultant to Teach Plus.

Melvoin worked on the ACLU’s  Reed v. California lawsuit, which challenged LA Unified’s seniority-based teacher layoff policies, by helping recruit former students and co-workers from Markham to join the lawsuit. (Click here to read Melvoin’s Los Angeles Times editorial on the case.) He also testified in the Vergara v. California lawsuit where a group of students successfully argued that the state’s teacher employment laws are unconstitutional. The case is currently under appeal.

LA School Report spoke with Melvoin by phone recently. This is an edited transcript of the conversation.

LA School Report: The LA Unified school board elections are more than a year away, in March 2017, and you are the first person to declare your candidacy. Why enter the race now?

Melvoin: I think that I wanted to start as early as possible building a coalition around setting a new vision for LAUSD. Because observing and participating as a teacher and an advocate over the last two cycles of elections I think that people have jumped in the race a little too late, and then it becomes this campaign of mailers and, given the way campaign finance laws are set up, there’s a lot of outside groups spending money and candidates aren’t really able to find their message, so I just wanted to give myself as much time as possible. … I’m a young candidate, I think I maybe the youngest candidate in the last couple of decades, at least in the last few years, and I feel like there’s a lot of ground to make up just to pitch my case and introduce myself to constituents.

LA School Report: What would your top priorities be as a school board member?

Melvoin: I think the things that I’ve been speaking to parents about and seem to resonate with folks are innovation, transparency and local control. And so those are the things that I’ve been speaking about and building a platform on. I think innovation, it’s been so difficult. And I think the reason you see more charter schools in LA, compared to anywhere else in the country, is that the district is so intractable and teachers and parents are turned away when they try to innovate and be creative. So finding ways to learn from our charter partners and magnet partners and pilot partners and see which schools are innovating and grow that to scale is a big priority. … I think transparency, a lot of these are interconnected, but looking at whether it is the financial resources of the district, or student attendance, facilities numbers and which schools are over-enrolled and which schools are under-enrolled. I think a lot of what we are seeing on the Westside in terms of tension between parent groups and the district is there just is no transparency in terms of what is happening in the black box of Beaudry. … This idea of local control, I think a lot of the parents I have been meeting with on the Westside don’t think in terms of charter vs. district, but they just want to have a little more say in their kids’ schools.

LA School Report: Do you have any criticism of the incumbent, Steve Zimmer?

Melvoin: I have known and respected Steve back since I was a first-year teacher. And I think his heart is in the right place. I think his focus on equity is admirable, and he and I were drawn into this work for many of the same reasons, but — and it is not that I’m coming out to attack Steve — but with the upcoming election he will have had two terms and eight years to put forward his vision for the district. And his pitch, just as I hear it, is just we need more time and we need more money. And I actually think there is a lot that can be done now that the parents and the kids are demanding. … But I think his dismantling of public school choice, his aversion to charter schools from an ideological perspective, his adherence to the status quo when it comes to teacher effectiveness and teacher evaluations, and his opposition to some of the work I’ve been involved with, like on the Reed case and Vergara that seek to get an effective educator in every classroom, his mishandling I think of just his own community, when it comes to the dual immersion school and Broadway Elementary and Playa Vista, there’s just all these instances of opportunities to bring people back into the district that were lost I think because of his leadership. But my pitch is not that I am anti-Steve, it’s just that he has had two terms to execute what his vision is for LAUSD, and if people are satisfied with the direction the district is going, then there is no reason to choose someone else. But given this is a five-and-a-half-year term, and if people are nervous about the direction and want something new, then I am that candidate.

LA School Report: What is your opinion of the Great Public Schools Now plan to expand charter schools in LA Unified?

Melvoin: One thing that has become clear and I think is ironic is both sides have accused the other side of feeling this way, but there is this idea that kids and LAUSD students are commodities, that they are money. I think critics of the plan were upset it used the words “market share,” and then the district itself, those same critics, are upset because every time a student goes to a charter school the district loses money, so there’s this whole idea of looking at students as commodities, and I just think that whole mindset is wrong. And when I meet with parents who have some vague idea of the Broad plan, they don’t see their kids as [average daily attendance], as money. They see them as wanting the best education, and they are going to send their kids to the school that can provide the best education, and if it’s not LAUSD then my response as a board member would be to improve our product so we get those families back. Because I actually think most parents don’t understand the difference necessarily between charters and district schools. And those that have one mindset — I know I’m going to be a charter parent or I know I’m going to be a district parent — once they start looking at options for their kids, those rules break down. … I don’t think the way to stop this enrollment decline is to shut down schools serving 100,000 kids and there is a waitlist of 40,000 more. … The way I see the investment from [Eli] Broad and other philanthropists is there are people who very unselfishly want to give a lot of money to improve schools in LA, and it would be my job as a board member to get them to give money to the district and ensure that we are going to use it, or use it with partnerships to create high-performing schools, and if I am a board member and they just want to give it to charter schools because the district has just become so intractable to outside investors and partners, then that is on me and that is on us.

LA School Report: In 2013, Zimmer went up against a candidate that was well-financed and supported by several prominent education reform advocates, like Broad and Michael Bloomberg, but still lost. Will you seek similar financial support from reformers?

Melvoin: I’m not courting any outside quote unquote donors. One of the reasons I want to start early is I want to build a grassroots campaign that gets its support from boots on the ground and eventually votes, but also money from people in the community.

*Updated to reflect Melvoin does not currently work as a consultant for Educators 4 Excellence