Sherlett Hendy-Newbill

Sherlett Hendy-Newbill, the Dorsey High teacher who finished third in the District 1 school board race, is throwing her support behind George McKenna in the August runoff.

McKenna, a former administrator, was the top vote getter in the June 3 primary, with 43.7 percent of the vote. He will face the runner-up, Alex Johnson, an aide to LA County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, in the runoff.

Hendy-Newbill, the leader among three candidates endorsed by the teachers union, UTLA,  won 8.8 percent of the vote, but if the outcome mirrors the primary, and all her voters switched, it would just about assure McKenna a victory.

“I have the utmost respect for Alex Johnson, whom I greatly appreciate and enjoyed many forums with,” she said in a statement. “But experience in the greater Los Angeles education arena was the determining factor in my decision to endorse George McKenna.”

The latter group won out and tomorrow, residents from southwest LA will get a chance to translate their passion into action — by electing a new representative from among seven candidates for the remaining year of LaMotte’s term.

Ordinarily school board elections don’t generate much public interest, the eagerness to fill LaMotte’s seat not withstanding. With approximately 300,000 registered voters in District 1, fewer than 44,000 cast a ballot — under 15 percent — when the seat was last contested, in 2011. That could change in this race because it is scheduled on the same day as a statewide primary.

“School board races are often held on off-years during the LA City elections, but since this one is tied to the state primary race, the turnout is going to be extremely high for an LA Unified special election,” Fernando Guerra, who directs the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University told LA School Report.

He expects about a quarter of District 1 voters will weigh in on the next school board member.

But in a race with so many candidates, Guerra says, the increase in civic participation is like mutually assured destruction. “It just makes it almost impossible for one candidate to get more than 50 percent of the vote,” he added.

If a single candidate fails to capture the support of a majority of voters, the top two contenders face off in a runoff election in August.

And that runoff, he predicted, will produce one of lowest turnouts in recent memory because it will be a stand alone election in August and voters will have no other reason to head to the polls.

“I think only about 5 percent of voters will get out for that, and that’s when really, anything can happen,” Guerra said.

Candidates viewed as frontrunners spent their final weekend before the election doing what they could to drum up more votes. George McKenna held a fundraiser dinner Saturday evening and used Sunday “walking, knocking and talking” to what he hopes will be victory. Alex Johnson was in and out of local churches Sunday morning, then spent the afternoon making door to door visits to voters. Sherlett Hendy-Newbill kept up her Saturday “weekend blowout” tradition, walking the precinct.

With LaMotte’s passing, the teachers union lost one of its most ardent supporters and a staunch critic of Superintendent John Deasy. But UTLA has invested little capital or manpower supporting any one candidate. Instead, the union voted to back all three union members in the race – Kindergarten teacher, Rachel Johnson, former teacher and school counselor, Hattie McFrazier, and high school teacher and coach, Hendy-Newbill. The union donated $1,100 to each campaign.

It is the same strategy UTLA deployed in the District 6 race last year, in Monica Ratliff‘s surprise victory over Antonio Sanchez.

“We believe in all of the teachers we’ve endorsed,” Marco Flores, the head of UTLA’s political action committee, PACE, told LA School Report back in April.

He said UTLA will step in “with boots on the ground” only if one of the three UTLA candidates makes it to the runoff, but he doesn’t expect the union will kick in much money because “the truth is,” he said, “whoever gets elected won’t be there very long.”

Hendy-Newbill , a popular teacher at Dorsey High School, has emerged as the front-runner among the union contenders. Last week, she gained the endorsement of the Network for Public Education, an advocacy group led by Diane Ravitch, one of the strongest voices in the country opposed to standardized testing and charter schools.

An outright win by Hendy-Newbill would be a major upset in the race, which polls say is largely between McKenna and Alex Johnson, the leading money raisers.

Johnson, who has been championed by L.A. County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, has out-raised all of the competition, with $208,000 in individual contributions and another $80,000 from three political action committees, including one that has received major funding from the California Charter Schools Association Advocates Independent Expenditure Committee.

McKenna doesn’t have as much money — he’s raised $122,533 — but he has been a beloved figure in south LA since the 1980s when he turned a gang-riddled high school in the area into a high-achieving academic preparatory. His efforts were later dramatized into a made-for-TV movie starring Denzel Washington.

The retired educator was the leading choice for parents who were advocating for an immediate appointment by the board.

Genethia Hudley-Hayes also has name recognition within the community. She is the only candidate who has actually served on the school board, representing the same south LA district.

She won a narrow victory in 1999 against an incumbent, sweeping into office with a reform slate that was backed by then-Mayor Richard Riordan. Her tenure lasted four years, until she was defeated in 2003 by LaMotte. But by many accounts, her term in office, including the first two years as board president, Hudley-Hayes won a reputation as a leader with record of success.

The one asterisk to her campaign has been the references on her resume that suggest she has academic degrees that she doesn’t have.

Omarosa Manigault is the wildest of wildcards in the group. The former reality-TV star turned special ed substitute teacher certainly is recognizable, but it’s unclear if she will be taken seriously by voters or if her message — District 1 “needs a representative who will propel our young people into the future. District 1 needs new energy, new ideas and fresh leadership” — will resonate.

She has raised very little money, about $25,000, and spent only about half of that. She has not reported any additional contributions since mid-March.

Manigualt participated in only a few of more than a dozen community forums leading up to the election.

Regardless of who wins tomorrow or in an August runoff, the whole process starts anew in less than a year when this seat, plus three others – Districts 3, 5, and 7  – are up.

Sherlett Hendy-Newbill

*UPDATED

While UTLA, the Los Angeles teachers union, has endorsed three candidates in next week’s District 1 school board race, one has emerged as first among equals.

Sherlett Hendy-Newbill has won the endorsement of the Network for Public Education, a public education advocacy group led by Diane Ravitch, one of the strongest voices in the country opposed to standardized testing and charter schools.

The group said it was endorsing Hendy-Newbill, an LA Unified high school teacher and basketball coach, because “of her commitment to high quality neighborhood schools.”

“She’s aligned with what we do,” said Robin Hiller, executive director of the Network. “She’s against privatization, and she has great views on testing and how it should be used. She’s a strong voice, and she’ll stand up tom people on the board.”

In endorsing Hendy-Newbill, Hattie McFrazier and Rachel Johnson, UTLA contributed the maximum, $1,100, to each of their campaigns — a gesture more symbolic than significant. By its even-handed approach, the union is demonstrating no unusual zeal for any of them.

All three are trailing in the money race, well behind the leader, Alex Johnson, who has raised more than $208,000. McFrazier has raised $16,428; Hendy-Newbill, $14,927; and Rachel Johnson, $9,650.

Ivano Newbill, Hendy-Newbill’s husband and unofficial campaign manager, said his wife is spending the final days of the campaign knocking on doors, handing out fliers and overseeing a phone bank— none of it with any official help from UTLA.

“We’re trying to get her message out that kids come first,” he said in an interview. “No corporations. No entities. Nothing of that nature. Kids, the community and teachers come first.”

Newbill said the campaign goal is to finish as one of the top two, then take her chances in the August runoff.

*Adds comment from Robin Hiller.

Not all of the seven candidates vying for the vacant seat on the Los Angeles Unified school board are turning up the heat as the special election on June 3 heads to the finish line.

To reach voters in South LA’s District 1, which as been without a board member since Marguerite LaMotte died in December, four of the candidates report they are campaigning by sending out direct mail pieces, knocking on doors, sending out emails or making phone calls. The other three are doing none of the above.

The City Ethics Commission requires candidates to report campaign communications as soon as more than 200 voters have been reached. So far, only four have complied:

• Rachel Johnson a teacher and city council member from Gardena with teacher union support, reports distributing one direct mail piece.

• Sherlett Hendy-Newbill, also endorsed by the teachers union has printed and distributed a flyer and sent an email to voters.

• George McKenna, a retired administrator supported by the principals union reports two walk pieces, a mailer and an email blast.

• Alex Johnson, an education aide to County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas reports 19 communications including mailers, emails and phone calls.

The remaining candidates, Genethia Hudley-Hayes a former school board member, Omarosa Manigault, best known as a contestant on “The Apprentice,” and Hattie McFrazier, a retired teacher who is also endorsed by the teacher’s union, have reported no communication activity at all.  Despite an absence of a campaign, they showed no sign of dropping out of the race.

]]> https://www.laschoolreport.com/tactics-vie-for-seat-on-lausd-school-board-some-with-no-campaign/feed/ 0 https://www.laschoolreport.com/district-1-candidates-flashing-personalities-lausd/ https://www.laschoolreport.com/district-1-candidates-flashing-personalities-lausd/#comments Thu, 08 May 2014 20:08:57 +0000 http://laschoolreport.com/?p=23276

Candidates McKenna (at mic), Hudley-Hayes, Johnson, Hendy-Newbill

The Ward A.M.E. Church in South LA was packed for a Wednesday night. But the people filing through doors weren’t there to talk about Jesus (though his name did come up). They were there to talk about the race for LA Unified School Board District 1.

Sherlett Hendy-Newbill, Alex Johnson, Genethia Hudley-Hayes and George McKenna — the only candidates among seven running who were invited — put on their “If-I-were-elected-hats” and discussed the district’s funding and resources, improving the school climate, preparing students for the 21st century, school performance, and community accountability.

Over the past three months there have been about 10 of these events. And although each has featured a different combination of school board hopefuls, by now most candidates have their talking points well honed. They also appear to agree on most issues — routing money to the neediest kids, investing in professional development for teachers and administrators, reducing police presence on school campus, boost after-school programs.

So it’s now their style and personality that is beginning to set them apart.

At last night’s forum McKenna, a 30-year veteran educator and who was played by Denzel Washington in a movie based on his life, became everyone’s wise-cracking favorite uncle.

On the issue of school discipline and the disproportionate punishment of African American students over their white counterparts, McKenna told the audience he identifies with today’s young black students because he was a rambunctious student.

“There was a point in my career where I was in charge of corporal punishment and I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t do it,” he said to a laughing crowd. “Because I was once the swat-ee. I was swatted by priests in the name of Jesus.”

Afterward, Christen Hebrand who was wearing a “McKenna for School Board” button, told LA School Report, “You can see that he really knows how to connect with people. But it’s not just that he makes you laugh, he also has the experience for the position.”

She said McKenna also has name recognition. “When I go out to campaign for him one out of two already know him,” she said. “Their kids went to one of his schools, their cousin, their nephew. Somebody they know, knows him.”

Johnson’s performance didn’t elicit many laughs, but he proved to know his facts and figures. He was the only candidate to consistently site specific numbers in almost every answer:

“District 1 has a higher rate of students being pushed out of school and into probation camps. It’s 2.9 percent higher.”

“LA Unified has $7.8 billion in Measure Q bond funds that are still available to use for construction projects.”

“70,000 computer science jobs in California are unfilled because we don’t have enough students going into that field.”

“The district should award 30 percent of it’s building contracts to minority owned companies.”

On the other hand, Hendy-Newbill was every bit Coach Taylor from “Friday Night Lights”: “Clear eyes, full hearts, can’t  lose!” She was the only candidate at the forum who still works in a school — Dorsey High School — as a teachers and basketball coach, and her day-to-day experiences appeared to resonate with parents in the audience.

A theme to which she constantly returned was the importance of parent engagement.

One of the loudest cheers she got from the audience was when she said, “We have students who want to be at Dorsey all of the time. It is their second home, their home away from home. And that’s what I want schools to be: family centers.”

Finally, Hudley-Hayes, who, like McKenna, is another life-long educator and former school board president, came across a bit more austere and lacked McKenna’s warmth, according to a few attendees.

“It’s clear she has the experience but she doesn’t speak to me,” Gloria Martin told LA School Report.

Martin explained that Hayes’ “When I was on the board” attitude turned her off. As a mother of LA Unified graduates and now grandmother of LA Unified students, Martin wondered, “If [Hayes] was on the school board then what did she do?”

Sherlett Hendy-Newbill

Second in a series of profiles of candidates for the LA Unified’s open District 1 board seat.

As a teacher, basketball coach and wife of a former NBA player, Sherlett Hendy-Newbill knows the value of teamwork, discipline and dedication.

It’s those attributes she is promising to bring to the LA Unified school board if she succeeds in winning election for the vacant seat in District 1, where she was born, raised and educated.

As a Dorsey High School teacher and basketball coach for the last 15 years, Hendy-Newbill, 41, is one of three teachers among the seven candidates running. She is married to Ivano Newbill, who played three seasons in the NBA in the mid-1990s.

With her sports background — not to mention the skills of raising a 19-month-old son —she says she can bring a fresh and unique perspective to the board by applying the essential team-building techniques she uses in her coaching.

“As a coach, you work to organize all people together,” she said. “You work together as a team, and that’s what I want to see on our board.”

Her campaign strategy, she said, is targeting likely voters, with more than 100 volunteers hitting the streets and knocking on doors. Her message is clear: There is a teacher and mother from the community who is interested in this position, and she has no alternative agenda.

“I have no dreams or aspirations of being a politician,” she said. “I’m here mainly because I want to be a school board member that sees the best in their schools.”

Even though she has been endorsed by UTLA, Hendy-Newbill realizes she is an underdog competing against opponents who have deeper pockets and stronger political backing. With campaign contributions totaling around $13,000 so far, she said, she is relying more on her hard work ethic to see her through until the end.

“I walk everyday for several hours,” she said. “It’s not about dollar amount for me. It’s more about seeing some valuable change, and I’m willing to put that work in.”

If elected, Hendy-Newbill says she will vote on policy issues that are in the best interest of all stakeholders, with a focus on those they are intended to serve.

“I felt that there needed to be a voice of the same concerns for our students and the same passion for our students,” she said. “I didn’t want to leave that to chance.”

She says she supports Superintendent John Deasy’s ideas and will work with him to improve District 1. Hendy-Newbill says she will not stand for waste in the district and feels there are many areas that need improvement, including repairing and retro-fitting schools to withstand a high magnitude earthquake.

Her first priority, she said, would be to make sure schools operate with a full staff, and eventually, she said, she would like to build on efforts of schools becoming family centers where parents, teachers, community members, and students come together to make decisions that impact learning at the school.

When it comes to seniority based layoffs, Hendy-Newbill feels that ineffective teachers should be removed but that current policy also needs to be evaluated to make sure teachers are being supported to perform at their highest levels. It’s what you might expect from a coach’s perspective.

The decision mirrors that of SEIU Local 99, the LA Unified support staff union, which also voted not to endorse anyone in the special election for the South LA seat, left vacant by the death of longtime school board member Marguerite LaMotte.

The vote was a reversal of sorts. Last week, the County Fed’s political action committee, COPE had voted to recommend “no endorsement” in the race, a decision made after interviewing four candidates: Alex Johnson, and the three teacher union-backed candidates, Sherlett Hendy-Newbill, Rachel Johnson and Hattie McFrazier. But a day later, that recommendation was trumped by the Federation executive board, which recommended Alex Johnson’s name be put before the delegates for a vote.

Johnson, an aide to County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, and a product of the LAUSD school system and American University Law School, is the top fundraiser in the election but has little name recognition.

The other three candidates, including George McKenna, considered by insiders to be a front-runner, were not involved in any round of the process because they failed to obtain a required letter of recommendation from any one of the 300 labor affiliates in the federation.

McKenna, a retired administrator, was the subject of a made-for-TV movie and has the backing of the prinicipal’s union, AALA.

UTLA, the teachers union, has endorsed three candidates in the June 3 special election to fill LA Unified’s District 1 board seat, all three with ties to the union: Rachel Johnson and Sherlett Hendy-Newbill are teachers, and Hattie McFrazier is a former teacher.

The head of UTLA’s political action committee, PACE, said the union will promote all three on the ballot equally, but that support might not come with a lot of union financial support.

“We believe in all of the teachers we’ve endorsed,” Marco Flores told LA School Report. “But the truth is, whoever gets elected won’t be there very long.”

Flores says the timing of the special election in June is too close to the regular school board elections in 2015, when four seats will be up for grabs, including District 1 again. And campaigning for those races, he said, will begin on Labor Day — just shortly after the new District 1 member would take a seat on the board if the election goes to an Aug. 12 runoff.

The question before UTLA and PACE, he said, is: “How much are we going to ask for, from our friends, from our affiliates, from the different groups that we get money from, for this particular race when nine months from now we’re going to be having another four races?”

Next year’s elections will be for board districts 1, 3, 5, and 7.

So far two board members have declared their intention to run as incumbents: Board president Richard Vladovic (7) will be seeking a third term and Bennett Kayser (5) is going after a second.

Barbara Jones, Chief of Staff for board member Tamar Galatzan (3), told LA School Report last week, “She hasn’t announced yet whether she is running.”

Last night’s vote

By voting to endorse three candidates last night for the LA Unified’s District 1 board seat, the UTLA House of Representatives chose to back two teachers and a former teacher who have raised a combined $8,440 for their election efforts.

While that honors Sherlett Hendy-Newbill, Rachel Johnson and the former instructor, Hattie McFrazier, their meager financial support so far, compared with the money leaders, Alex Johnson ($113,051) and Genethia Hudley-Hayes ($56,070), could mean an even greater disadvantage for the union. Hendy-Newbill raised $4,836; McFrazier, $3,604; Johnson, $0.

With its three choices long-shots, as measured by donor contributions, the union is in jeopardy of losing the kind of sure support it always had in Marguerite LaMotte, whose death in December created the vacancy.

Both Johnson and Hudley-Hayes and, to an extent George McKenna, the third-place finisher in money raised ($45,948), are not viewed as rubber-stamp voters for the union, which means if any of them wins, key board votes could easily go 4-3 against union interests.

In a final vote by the union reps, the three-way endorsement prevailed, 101 to 31. The remaining candidate, Omarosa Manigault, a substitute teacher, has raised $4,450 but failed to win union backing.

“I am really surprised,” McFrazier said of the multiple endorsements. “This is not the right strategy to take. As a union we should be supporting one candidate and stand behind that person. By supporting three, you don’t really have an advantage at all.”

Some union reps recalled Monica Garcia‘s victory for the District 2 board seat last year after the union endorsed three of her challengers.

“Last year we did a multiple endorsement, and that failed,” said John Paul Cabrera. “This time we have two well-funded candidates. We need a single clear message. We need a viable candidate who can raise money and win.”

Others said the union is in no financial position to back anyone.

“UTLA is broke,” said Francisco Martinez. “We don’t have money. How are we going to pay to endorse a person? Just saying we endorse someone doesn’t get them elected.”

But money does’t always win, as Marco Flores, chairman of the union’s political action committee, PACE, said, recalling Steve Zimmer‘s victory over Kate Anderson last year for the District 4 seat.

“In the Zimmer race, they outspent us four to one and we still won,” he said.

The committee has already discussed a three-way endorsement, but Flores declined to provide details. He said what happens next largely depends on an Independent Expenditure committee to be formed within the week. It will develop a strategy and budget.

Flores contemplated some of the possible matchups, should the June 3 special election fail to produce a winner, and the top two candidates move on to an August runoff. In that case, the union would reconsider its possibilities for an endorsement.

“If it comes down to Hattie McFrazier and George McKenna, then the question is can we live with McKenna’s unfriendly dislike of Deasy?” Flores said, referring to LA Unified Superintendent John Deasy. “I think so. If it’s Hayes and one of our candidates, then I can see it becoming a full-blown multi-million dollar campaign.”

He said Johnson, an education aide to LA County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, remains an unknown: “He worked with unions back east, and so far we haven’t heard anything from AFT telling us ‘destroy him’ ”

If the race came down to Johnson and Hudley-Hayes, it would be less costly to the union, he said, because they are engaged in a dispute over inconsistencies in Hudley-Hayes’s resume.

“She’s putting out all the trash about him,” Flores said. “We can just sit back and watch, we don’t have to pay for any of that research.”

And an endorsement in that matchup might be easier: “Hayes turned on us after we endorsed her,” he said.

Or, maybe, he said, the union might sit the whole race out, given that a winner in the runoff would remain on the board only through another election next year, when the seats for Districts 1, 3, 5 and 7 are up.

“We’re getting a lot of calls from our members saying we should just wait until the 2015 race – that’s only 8 months away from the general election in August,” he said. “They’re saying we should save our money and resources.”

Previous Posts: SEIU Local 99 starting process to endorse District 1 candidate; UTLA board endorses 3 teachers; LAUSD District 1 election still open to write in candidates.

Sherlett Hendy-Newbill

The UTLA House of Representatives tonight voted to endorse a former teacher and two current teachers in the LA Unified District 1 board race.

The vote mirrored the recommendation of the union’s Board of Directors, which voted last week for endorsing former district teacher Hattie McFrazier and the two current teachers,  Sherlett Hendy-Newbill and Rachel Johnson.

The administrators union has previously endorsed George McKenna, and the school staff union, SEIU Local 99, is expected to endorse next week.

In recommending Sherlett Hendy-Newbill, Rachel Johnson and Hattie McFrazier, a retired teacher, the board chose to withhold endorsing the fourth teacher in the race, Omarosa Manigault, who is a substitute teacher.

The board’s recommendations now go before the UTLA House of Representatives March 26 for a final decision on whom, if anyone, the union endorses. To win a UTLA endorsement, a candidate needs 60 percent of the representatives’ vote.

If a runoff is needed, the union will reconsider its options.

The other three candidates for the seat are George McKenna, Alex Johnson and Genethia Hudley-Hayes.