Today, at 29, Imelda Padilla  joins the race for District 6, becoming the youngest person in recent memory to run for Los Angeles Unified School Board. She is seeking the seat being vacated by Monica Ratliff, who is running for Los Angeles City Council. Joanne Baltierrez-Fernandez and Araz Parseghian have also announced their intention to run for the seat.

“I am a true product of this community,” Padilla said. “I have walked every street in the district, I know every school, and I have teachers, principals and students urging me to run.”

One of those encouraging her is Ratliff herself, who is not yet fully endorsing anyone in the race but was impressed with Padilla and suggested in November that she run for the office. “I have watched some of the community organizing she has done, and heard her speak, and she is a very impressive young woman,” Ratliff said. “I think she would add an amazing voice to the school board.”

Ratliff said she may ask candidates to fill out a personal questionnaire for her before she endorses any candidate. The primary election is March 7.

A self-identified “Chicana,” Padilla said she is a first-generation politicized Mexican-American. She grew up in Sun Valley, where she still lives today. Her mother worked at an airplane factory, and her father was a gardener. She has two older sisters who have master’s degrees and a younger brother who has attended college but not yet finished. Her older brother, who protected her from being bullied when she had rickets, is now incarcerated because “he had very bad friends, but he was a big influence,” she said.

Imelda Padilla with some nieces and nephews in front of Roscoe Elementary, where she attended.

She attended Roscoe Elementary, then went to Byrd Middle School Magnet and Francis Polytechnic Senior High before it was a pilot school. Her sister now teaches there. Padilla graduated from UC Berkeley with a bachelor’s degree in political science and a minor in philosophy and Chicano studies.

For the past year and a half, Padilla worked for the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, or LAANE, an advocacy organization. Padilla worked on the Raise the Wage campaign that led to the historic vote that will raise the minimum wage to $15 by 2020 in Los Angeles County.

She left what she calls “a lucrative job” to run for the school board. She doesn’t think it’s right to keep her job because LAANE is launching an educational campaign and it could be considered a conflict.

“I observed that there are teachers who would be perfect, and understood the policy and politics of the school board, but were not willing to leave the classroom,” Padilla said. “When people gave me the suggestion, I slept on it and thought that I would have a lot to contribute.”

Some assessments of LA Unified she refuses to believe: “One is that LAUSD schools are failures, period; and another is the conversation of neighborhood schools versus charter schools.” She doesn’t believe there has to be a battle.

She met with members of charter organizations and as well as unions, and she attended the Promising Practices forum over the summer where charter teachers and traditional school teachers shared best practices.

“This us-versus-them attitude I find personally offensive,” Padilla said. “Specifically, in my community, I find that parents have utilized both systems, where they like charters for middle school, but then prefer district high schools for the big sports facilities and other opportunities, like additional counselors and more federal money going to the schools.”

She has heard of many local successful charters and also ones that are noted for simply handing out worksheets without showing much educational improvement. She has also been told by some of her constituents that some charter schools have cherry-picked higher-performing students, and she wants to help figure out which schools may be giving charters a bad name.

She prefers to remain grassroots, like Ratliff did during her campaign even when facing big money being funneled to her competitors.

“I also plan to reach voters that don’t have kids in the schools, but they may live near the schools, and bad schools are bad neighbors,” Padilla said.

She has yet to meet Superintendent Michelle King but appreciates that King is also a product of LA Unified and understands the district. That’s comforting to Padilla, who has 12 nieces and nephews attending district schools.

Although Padilla could be working with school board members who are more than twice her age, she pointed out that she has worked with a diversity of people throughout her organizing career.

“I don’t think I’m too young; it’s about knowing what the job of a school board member does,” Padilla explained. Another school board candidate, in District 4, Nick Melvoin, is 30.

She added, “I’m good at dealing with complicated and controversial issues, like co-location of school sites.” She worked on labor issues for SEIU, environmental concerns for Pacoima Beautiful and community issues for the City of Los Angeles.

She is boning up on budget issues and said there are ideas in the findings of the Independent Financial Review Panel that should be implemented immediately. “I am shocked that we are losing so much money because teachers don’t want direct deposit,” Padilla said. “Get with the program, the technology is there. That may sound a little oppressive, but that sounds like something that can be addressed easily.”

She wants to take a realistic approach to technology and wants to reassess the one-to-one push for computers for every student.

“It is low-key kind of insulting and unrealistic, and we need to do a real assessment to (see) what the need is,” Padilla said. “Bottom line is families do have at least one computer, and they have phones, but they can’t always pay for the wireless connection every month. Maybe we should think of schools as wi-fi hubs.”

Padilla said she knows it could be a tough campaign, but she’s tough, as a P.E. teacher told her years ago.

“He told me he understood where my toughness came from,” Padilla said, but that “I could smile more. That stuck with me to this day.”

School board candidate facts

Name: Imelda Padilla

Age: 29

Job: Community organizer for Pacoima Beautiful, then with the Los Angeles Alliance for a New Economy, and started her own non-profit called Together We Do More, which aims to help middle and high school students start to think about higher education and professional development at a young age.

Married: no

Children in LAUSD: none

Did candidate attend LAUSD: Roscoe Elementary, Byrd Middle School and Polytechnic High School

Lives: In childhood home in Sun Valley

Platform – key items: Fair funding for schools, improved academy performance and increased parental and community involvement.

Campaign money raised:

Key endorsements: UTLA, SEIU Local 99, Los Angeles County Democratic Party, Los Angeles School Police Association, International Brotherhood of Teamsters

Campaign website: imeldaforschoolboard.com

Days before Marguerite LaMotte died last December at the age of 80, Daymond Johnson, a school safety officer and consultant, filed papers with the City Ethics Commission to run for her LA Unified District 1 board seat when her term expired in 2015.

Whether she intended to seek reelection or not, his rationale was to infuse the board with some youth — he was 32 at the time — and maybe some fresh ideas.

Now, Johnson finds himself in an awkward spot.

After George McKenna’s name arose as a community favorite to serve out LaMotte’s term, Johnson became a McKenna supporter.

“I felt it was very important to support him because the community asked him to run,” Johnson said in an interview this week. “That was different to me from politicians’ asking someone to run.”

So Johnson was happy this week when McKenna, 73, finally claimed the seat in a runoff election, defeating Alex Johnson, 34, to serve out LaMotte’s term through next year.

But that has left Daymond Johnson with a difficult balance — still feeling a need to bring some youth to the LA Unified board, but willing to give McKenna a chance.

So where does that leave his candidacy?  In tact, for the time being.

“I’ve already started reaching for (campaign) dollars,” Johnson said. “But if Dr. McKenna is doing what the community wants him to do, sometime down the road I might be willing to back out of the race.”

When might that be?

“I’ll definitely give him to November or December,” he said. “If McKenna is doing what students need, I’ll support him.”

Of course, the political landscape is always changing. McKenna might run for reelection or he might not. Alex Johnson might try again. Other candidates might emerge. The primary for District 1 — as well as for Districts 3,5 and 7 — is in March.

That’s seven months away – but an eternity in LA Unified.

]]> https://www.laschoolreport.com/another-johnson-daymond-lining-up-for-lausd-district-1/feed/ 0 https://www.laschoolreport.com/the-big-losers-last-night-independent-groups-for-johnson/ https://www.laschoolreport.com/the-big-losers-last-night-independent-groups-for-johnson/#respond Wed, 13 Aug 2014 17:24:40 +0000 http://laschoolreport.com/?p=27522 Fun with numbers:

By the LA City Clerk’s unofficial results from last night, George McKenna won with 14,940 votes to 13,153 for Alex Johnson.

That translates to $6.79 the McKenna campaign spent for each vote, $101,479 overall, compared with $10.22 that the Johnson campaign paid for each vote, $134,470 overall.

Among the independent groups who spent money on each candidate’s behalf, the really big losers were Johnson backers, who wrote checks for a total of $777,975, or the equivalent of $59.14 per vote. The biggest spenders were Mark Ridley-Thomas‘s voter registration organization (more than $442,000) and a political action committee affiliated with charter schools (more than $183,000).

McKenna’s independent groups — mostly teacher unions — spent $192,543, or just $12.88 per vote.

Perhaps not coincidentally, the first quote from McKenna after declaring victory was: “The community won and sent a message that District 1 is not for sale.”

Tamar Galatzan LAUSD School Board Member

For those keeping score, it’s now 3-2.

A second member of the LA Unified school board, Tamar Galatzan, is endorsing Alex Johnson for the open District 1 seat.

She joins Monica Garcia as the board backers for Johnson. Three others — Monica Ratliff, Steve Zimmer and Bennett Kayser — have endorsed George McKenna.

That leaves board President Richard Vladovic as the lone neutral in the Aug. 12 runoff election. He does not intend to endorse in the race, said Chris Torres, his chief of staff.

“As a parent with children attending LAUSD schools and as a criminal prosecutor, Tamar Galatzan understands the critical importance of keeping our children safe at school,” Johnson said in a statement. “Tamar knows I will be a voice for change on the school board to ensure that our L.A. schools do a better job of providing a quality education for our children. I look forward to working closely with (her) on important issues, such as early childhood education, school-based health centers and student safety.”

None of the board endorsements is a surprise. Galatzan and Garcia, the board’s most reform-minded members, are backing the candidate most favorable to reform; the other three, known as  more friendly to union interests, are backing the candidate supported by UTLA, the teachers union.

Previous Posts: Zimmer, Kayser back McKenna; Villaraigosa in for Johnson; Ratliff forgoes neutrality, endorsing McKenna in board race; McKenna, Johnson re-launch campaigns for school board seat

Alex Johnson (left), George McKenna (right)

The battle for LA Unified’s open District 1 board seat is playing out not only among voters in the district, but also within the city’s labor unions.

Both candidates in the Aug. 12 runoff, George McKenna and Alex Johnson, have drawn considerable labor support. But a substantial split suggests that this is a typical election pitting labors groups that favor reform policies against the teachers union.

McKenna, the former administrator, would appear to have an advantage within the LA Unified family. He has been endorsed by two of the district’s three major labor partners — the teachers, UTLA; and the school administrators, AALA.

Johnson, an aide to LA Country Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, has the support of the third, SEIU Local 99, as well as endorsements from 15 other locals, representing a variety of trades, including fire fighters, teamsters and probation officers.

A bigger prize awaits, if it is offered. The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, the umbrella organization for more than 300 locals, representing about 600,000 workers, has scheduled an endorsement committee meeting for July 10 to determine which of the candidates the union might endorse.

And might, is the key word.

The AFL-CIO withheld endorsing anyone in the primary, and any recommendation from the committee would go before the membership on July 21.

“It’s not common for the delegates to overrule the decision,” said Rusty Hicks, the group’s political director. “But it can.”

George McKenna

*UPDATED

The LA teachers union, UTLA, voted last night to endorse George McKenna for LA Unified’s District 1 board seat in the August runoff election.

McKenna, a retired administrator, had no direct ties to the union and in his winning primary campaign struck a note of independence in assessing various issues.

But in the end, said Marco Flores, chairman of the union’s political action committee, PACE, members of the union’s House of Representatives “overwhelmingly” preferred McKenna over Alex Johnson, a legislative aide to LA County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, for two reasons.

First, Flores said, McKenna “stood with us” in the aftermath of the Miramonte child abuse scandal, openly opposing Superintendent John Deasy’s decision to pull all teachers out of the school.

“That was inhuman and degrading, and that stuck with our teachers,” Flores said. At the time, McKenna was a superintendent for a region that included Miramonte.

The other reason, Flores said, is that McKenna has emerged as the District 1 community’s favorite, by virtue of his many years as a school administrator and his strong victory in the primary last week. He won with 43.7 percent of the vote to Johnson’s 24.4 percent.

In the primary, the union had endorsed three teacher candidates — Sherlette Hendy-Newbill, Hattie McFrazier and Rachel Johnson — but none of them reached double figures in percentage of the vote. The union supported each with a $1,100 campaign contribution, the maximum, and Flores saids McKenna would get $1,100 from UTLA, as well.

Flores said that a motion was raised tonight to not endorse anyone in the runoff. “But that,” he said, “was overwhelmingly defeated.”

Flores described McKenna as “the choice of the community” and as someone who would work smoothly with the union’s new leadership team “which is all about grass roots.” President-elect Alex Caputo-Pearl takes over on July 1.

“It was a natural conclusion,” Flores said. “We stand for community.”

He also said some members held it against Johnson that the majority of independent expenditure money spent on behalf of his primary campaign, more than $54,000 of $80,000, came from a group affiliated with the California Charter Schools Association.

But the choice was more a pro-McKenna vote than anti-Johnson, Flores said.

“Alex is bright, articulate and intelligent,” Flores said. “He’s a good politician. But at this point, we don’t need a politician. We need an educator.”

Adds campaign contribution information.

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.”

SEIU Local 99

The union, which represents 45,000 school-related employees including teachers’ assistants, bus drivers and cafeteria workers, made its decision last night after a members-only town hall event. The endorsement was confirmed by Courtni Pugh, Executive Director of SEIU.

Both Johnson, a senior aide to County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, and his opponent, retired administrator George McKenna, were interviewed at the meeting. McKenna was the top vote-getter in last week’s primary for the vacant seat in South LA’s District 1, with 44.3 percent of the vote. Johnson came in second, with 24.7 percent of the vote out of a field of seven candidates.

While there has been little to distinguish the candidates from each other on many issues, Johnson has publicly supported Superintendent John Deasy and campaigned with strong financial support from charter school groups. McKenna has refused to go on record about his views on Deasy. SEIU is considered to have a cordial relationship with Deasy.

SEIU backing could provide a boost to the Johnson campaign; historically the union’s endorsement comes with significant spending on behalf candidates by SEIU’s super PAC. The union also has thousands of members who live within the district, which could prove important in what is expected to be an exceptionally low turnout election.

The union had decided last April to sit on the sidelines during the primary, but said at the time that a re-evaluation of the race was in order for the runoff.

Previous Posts: SEIU 99 decides not to endorse a candidate for District 1 board seat; LAUSD candidates McKenna, Johnson set for election runoff

As voters head to the polls today, candidates running for LA Unified District 1 board seat were making last-minute pushes to reach voters and promote their message.

Seven candidates are competing for a seat that has been vacant since December, and only an outright winner, with more than 50 percent of the vote, can assume board duties right away. Otherwise, the top two voter getters will face off in an August final.

Before heading off to work this morning, teacher Sherlett Hendy-Newbill was at the polls to vote, and later, hit the campaign trail before class to drum up support.

Hendy-Newbill walked the streets and encouraged folks in the community to make sure they vote. She asked them if they knew the location of their polling places and offered them rides. About 35 volunteers are helping her spread the word.

Alex Johnson, an education aide to LA Country Supervisor Mark Ridley Thomas, voted this morning at the Tom Bradley Youth Center on Pico Boulevard. He was also using the closing hours to get votes as he made his rounds in the Crenshaw district of Los Angeles.

He greeted parents at Castle Heights Elementary School as they brought their children to classes this morning. He urged them to vote and support his candidacy.

Later, Johnson greeted patrons at Pann’s restaurant in Ladera Heights, reminding them to vote and joining them for coffee. Next, he was planning visits to his campaign headquarters to join volunteers and staff on his phone bank, his alma mater, LACES High School, to visit with parents as they arrive to pick up their children; and later at the Southwest Regional Council of Carpenters to thank them for their support and endorsement.

Among the other candidates, teacher Rachel Johnson cast her vote early this morning and headed to teach class during the final week of school before summer break. She said she plans to watch the election results tonight surrounded by her friends and family.

The other candidates running are George McKenna, Hattie McFrazier, Omarosa Manigault and Genethia Hudley-Hayes.

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.