* Updated Feb. 28

The LA Unified school board is moving forward quickly to find a new superintendent and has set a March 14 deadline for applications. 

The board will start reviewing applications after the search firm of Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates has vetted the applicants and expects to make its selection in April. The application, job description, and desired characteristics are listed on their site: https://ecragroup.com/job/superintendent-los-angeles-ca/

The board decided not to commission a large-scale series of forums, surveys, and meetings asking for community input on what’s wanted in a new superintendent, board President Mónica García said Tuesday. The district plans to keep the process as open as possible with a special web page: achieve.lausd.net/nextsuperintendent which has the 2015 survey results from the past search, and the board’s criteria for candidates, as well as a place to provide additional comments about the search.

“We have all been getting input from our various communities every single day,” García said just before going into a special board meeting where they will discuss the search.

LA School Report is publishing a series of articles from parent groups and education leaders detailing the leadership qualities a new superintendent should have. García said the board has been paying attention.

“The process will be confidential because we do believe that is the best way to get the best candidates,” García said.

The last search, when Michelle King was named, was kept confidential. In the past, searches have been more open; one included a debate among the top three candidates. King announced in January she will leave the post by the end of June as she is battling cancer. The search firm agreed to conduct the search at no extra charge because it was within a two-year window.

The board is seeking a leader to run the second-largest school district in the nation that has more than 900 schools and 274 charter schools with more than 640,000 students extending over 720 square miles covering 31 cities. They want someone who will address “financial challenges including liability costs and structural deficits,” “chronic underfunding of California public schools,” and “lead a system of excellence from cradle to career.”

Desired characteristics for the job include being “bold and courageous — unafraid to make hard decisions” and “understand the financial challenges facing LAUSD and be committed to confronting them” as well as know Los Angeles. They also want someone who is a team builder and has “political acumen.”

• Read our series on the leadership LAUSD needs: commentaries from parent groups and education leaders locally and nationwide. 

* This article has been updated to add that the board expects to make its selection in April. 

Students at an assembly at a Partnership school. (Courtesy: Partnership for Los Angeles Schools)

Maria Ruiz worried about her three sons’ education in Boyle Heights, a low-income Los Angeles neighborhood where she felt the public schools were dangerous and neglected. But when the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools took over leadership of her sons’ low-performing campuses, she witnessed a transformation — in her boys as well as their schools.

With the Partnership’s extra training, Ruiz saw how teachers at Roosevelt High School were better equipped to help her autistic son Angel. Mendez High School got a new principal — a successful middle school teacher, Mauro Bautista, who brought an innovative math program now used districtwide. At the two high schools, test scores jumped by more than 60 percentage points in math. Roosevelt Magnet High is now in the top 20 percent of schools for math in the state.

Through the Partnership’s Parent Colleges, Ruiz received training in how to help with homework, use computers, and find financial aid. She and her sons received extensive college counseling and help with aid and scholarship applications. And she found the schools safer under the Partnership’s emphasis on restorative justice.

“I am very proud of all my sons, and Angel is now attending Cal State LA and Hugo is at UC Riverside and wants to be a special ed teacher,” Ruiz said. “Through the Partnership, I joined the Parent College program and it opened my eyes on how to help my children, how to get them to the right reading levels, the right colleges, and even have good eating habits.”

What is the Partnership?

The Partnership for Los Angeles Schools is a unique school model that focuses on turning around the lowest-scoring schools with the highest dropout rates in the toughest neighborhoods of Los Angeles — Boyle Heights, Watts, and South Los Angeles.

It runs 18 schools — five high schools, four middle schools, and nine elementary schools — serving 14,500 students. Were it a stand-alone entity, it would be its own mid-sized district in California. A typical Partnership school is 88 percent Latino, 10 percent African-American, 30 percent English learners, 15 percent students with special needs, and 95 percent eligible for free or reduced-price lunch — all higher than district averages.

• Read more: From principal to Partnership, Joan Sullivan sees good leadership as the key to success for low-performing schools

LA Unified invites the Partnership into struggling schools, which then benefit from more freedoms, community resources, and organizational support. Teachers and principals receive intensive professional development, and principals are sometimes replaced and new curriculum introduced. The schools remain part of LA Unified, and they follow state education codes and honor all labor agreements.

Instead of expansion, the Partnership’s goal is to share best practices so schools throughout the district can replicate what works. Their contract is renewed every five years with the district.

It brings extra resources through connecting its schools with community organizations. For example, City Year works with 10 schools to prevent students who are at high risk of dropping out. Promesa Boyle Heights works with three schools to provide tutoring, counseling, and credit recovery to students who aren’t on track to graduate.

Richard and Melanie Lundquist were honored last week by the LA Unified school board. He is holding her old yearbook from Grant High.

If Partnership sees a need at a school, they will try to find a way to help — and not just through education. When 107th Elementary needed a playing field, the Partnership helped it raise about $200,000 from the LA Clippers Foundation and the Yael and Scooter Braun Family Foundation to renovate the school’s field. When Florence Griffith Joyner Elementary needed a psychiatric social worker to help students dealing with issues such as homelessness and immigration fears, the Partnership worked with the Wasserman Foundation to add that position.

The Partnership model is the brainchild of former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who is now running for governor of California. Partnership’s first CEO, Marshall Tuck, is running for state superintendent of public instruction. The Partnership’s current CEO is Joan Sullivan, whose name is frequently raised as a strong contender for superintendent of LA Unified.

In 2006, Villaraigosa tried taking control of the governance of LA Unified but failed after a protracted political and legal battle. He settled on creating the Partnership, which began working with 10 district schools in 2008. But it was in the middle of a severe recession with massive teacher layoffs, particularly in the poorest communities.

“It was a very difficult year and the state was gutting the budget for public schools so the highest poverty areas were feeling the most pain,” said Tuck, who was Partnership’s CEO at the time.  “A major reason why I’m running for state school superintendent is to correct some of these policies of inequity that I’ve seen — and continue to see — in the highest poverty neighborhoods that just don’t make sense.”

This year, the Partnership is celebrating a decade of working with schools, and an independent report released last month from Public Impact shows it has achieved tremendous growth with some of the state’s lowest-performing schools. Another educational research organization, the Center on Reinventing Public Education, published a study in October on the partnership model after discovering a sudden proliferation of this type of in-district school turnaround model in 10 cities throughout the country.

Last month, the Partnership received a 10-year pledge of $35 million from local philanthropists Melanie and Richard Lundquist, a decade after their initial $50 million pledge that launched the Partnership. Theirs is the second-largest donation to public schools in U.S. history. (The most was $100 million given to Newark public schools in 2010 by Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg.)

The Lundquists, who both graduated from LA Unified schools, presented their gift last month at the Partnership’s Santee Education Complex, a high school that a decade ago was among the lowest-performing in the state with a 27 percent graduation rate. Today, Santee has an 81 percent graduation rate that tops LA Unified’s.

“We searched for two decades to support a program that wouldn’t be just a Band-Aid and create a national model that could be replicated at districts across the country,” said Melanie Lundquist, who was honored with her husband by the school board last week.

With the philanthropic money — not counting community partnerships that provide educational and facilities improvements — Partnership schools spend only about $650 more per student per year than the average district student, for whom about $11,000 is budgeted by the state. Some charter schools spend up to $2,000 more per student.

“This is a third way, a hybrid in between charter schools and district schools, and it’s growing in number throughout the country,” said Sean Gill, a research analyst for the Center on Reinventing Public Education at the University of Washington. “Partnership LA is unique. It’s not contracting out the whole school, and everyone is still a district employee, and they remain the neighborhood option.”

Gill stumbled upon the growing number of districts using this governance model in Houston, Philadelphia, Denver, Atlanta, and other districts, which led to the study released last October. He called them “Partnership” schools, after the LA model.

Bryan Hassel, co-president of Public Impact in Chapel Hill, N.C., led the independent study into Partnership LA’s first decade, released in January. “There’s no doubt that this is a highly successful model,” said Hassel, whose research group that specializes in low-income students was commissioned by Partnership to do the report. “They are not there yet, but they are making great progress. I think it’s fair to say their work isn’t done.”

Faster student achievement growth

Overall, the 18 Partnership schools aren’t outperforming the district as a whole.

In math, 20 percent of students in Partnership schools were proficient last school year, compared to 28 percent districtwide. In English, 31 percent of Partnership students were proficient, while 39 percent were in the district.

But they are posting faster growth.

Partnership overall saw a 5 percentage-point increase in students meeting or exceeding standards in math from 2016 to 2017, and a 7 percentage-point increase in English, according to data from the state.

LA Unified saw a 1 percentage-point improvement in math, while the percentage who were proficient in English remained flat.

School board President Mónica García, who has the most Partnership schools — nine of them — in her district, said, “I have seen firsthand the turnaround in schools after the Partnership comes in, and how the community is inspired to make a difference. It’s real, you can feel it. This is a great model for collaboration and empowering communities. You must look at the success in the growth of their change. That is phenomenal.”

Vivian Ekchian, Mónica García, and Marshall Tuck honor the Lundquists at Santee High. (Courtesy: Partnership for Los Angeles Schools)

School board member George McKenna said, “I remain concerned about the performance of regular district and Partnership schools. Yes, there’s growth, but ultimately it means there are still 80 percent of the students who are not prepared mathematically, and there are 69 percent not good in English. Granted, the schools are in challenging circumstances, and they were underachieving before they got there, but I’m looking for more progress.”

Partnership high schools have increased graduation rates at a faster pace than the district. Their five high schools have seen a graduation rate more than 80 percent on average. Graduation rates at four of the high schools exceeded the district’s in 2016, and all of them have made double-digit gains in statewide percentile rankings since joining the Partnership.

Overall, 95 percent of Partnership schools increased their statewide percentile in English language arts, and nearly 90 percent improved in math, Public Impact’s report found. In both English and math, 63 percent of the schools improved their rank by 10 percentile points or more, moving ahead of 1,000 other schools in the state.

Richard García, a spokesman for the California Charter Schools Association, said, “It is encouraging to see LAUSD embrace education models, including pilot schools, magnet schools, and Partnership schools that leverage many of the same fundamental elements that have made the Los Angeles charter school movement successful.”

CCSA compared Partnership schools’ 2017 Smarter Balanced test scores with district and charter schools in the same ZIP codes, ranking them 1-10 in a Similar Students Rank. Partnership high schools beat charter and district schools this past year; Partnership ranked 8, charters ranked 5, and district schools ranked 4. For elementary and middle schools, charters came out on top, ranking 8 while Partnership schools ranked 6; district elementary schools ranked 4, and district middle schools ranked 3.

Also, Partnership schools showed growth from 2016 to 2017 in all grade levels, doubling their ranking for elementary and middle schools from 3 to 6 and jumping from 5 to 8 in their high schools, while district and charter schools retained nearly the same rankings.

It delighted Sullivan, the CEO, that one of the Partnership’s newest schools, 20th Street Elementary, raised its math scores 19 points, showing the highest math gains of any traditional school in LA Unified this past year.

“Our Hollenbeck (Middle) school was one of the three or four lowest in the district, and now it’s in the top one-third, one of the most improved in the whole district this year,” Sullivan said. “Santee turned from a place that people were afraid to send their kids to school to one that now has a waiting list and turns people away. The four-year college acceptance rates have risen from 33 percent to 45 percent.”

But, Sullivan sighed, “Despite this progress, we are only scratching the surface. We know we have a long way to go. But we’ve had a good year.”

Innovations spread to all LAUSD

Many of Partnership’s innovations are now used districtwide. It introduced “School Report Cards” that included test scores as well as school experience survey responses by staff, parents, and students. LA Unified adopted the report cards and used them for three years before last year’s rollout of the new statewide accountability measure, the California School Dashboard.

The Partnership was an early supporter of unified enrollment, stressing the importance of providing an easy-access website that would give parents one place to apply to all public school options. This year LA Unified started using a modified unified enrollment system, which includes their popular schools of choice — magnets and dual immersion programs — but not independent charter schools. The Partnership’s suggested model for unified enrollment included charter schools.

Noticing the low numbers of students identified as gifted at their schools, the Partnership spent $12,000 to test all their second-graders, not just those whose parents requested it, which is the district’s policy. It discovered many more students were shown to be gifted but had never been tested. The district followed the Partnership’s lead and tests all second-graders. In six months, the district saw a 9-point increase in black students identified as gifted.

The Partnership is also sharing its success with its Parent College, which trains parents to help their children with homework, prepare them for college, seek financial help, and give basic lifestyle advice. The parent colleges are open to charter parents as well.

Joan Sullivan with Interim Superintendent Vivian Ekchian and Local District South Superintendent Chris Downing.

“Parent voice and engagement is crucial to improving education,” Sullivan said. “There’s power in the parent voice, and they are the best advocates for children.”

The Partnership is also expanding their restorative justice programs — discipline that focuses on reconciliation — into district schools, to seven schools that feed into Partnership schools.

Last June, the first 11 principals graduated from UCLA’s Principal Leadership Institute, which was designed for the Partnership. “I have such joy being in partner with these wonderful schools,” said Nancy Parachini, the institute’s director. She served as a principal in Watts and East Los Angeles before developing the program three years ago.

“We are proud of our connection with Partnership schools and they are a model for the nation,” Parachini said. “We provide training for teachers and leaders of the most vulnerable students in historically underserved communities.”

At Mendez, Principal Bautista used the freedoms of the Partnership to choose his own math curriculum, the College Board’s SpringBoard Math. He figured, “What better curriculum for AP classes than the one that the College Board developed?”

Today, all of LA Unified high schools use SpringBoard Math.

The Partnership is also studying ways to increase enrollment and attendance. And they are starting to offer dual language programs, starting with one at Sunrise Elementary next year.

“We are focusing on how to allocate dollars with equity in mind and share those policy issues with others,” Sullivan said.

Tuck said he saw firsthand the success of a Partnership school when visiting 99th Street Elementary on a Dads and Donuts day when fathers read with their children. “It was packed, and it was great to see this kind of participation that Joan and her team inspired by bringing in community partners and additional resources,” he said.

“The Partnership is not outside the system like a charter school network, and it’s not completely within the system. It’s within a school district where you have a really complicated system that has not been able to prove things on its own … and partner with third parties,” Tuck said. “There has to be more flexibility in the district bureaucracy to allow more innovation and creativity at schools. The Partnership model proves that it works.”

Partnership for Los Angeles Schools CEO Joan Sullivan with a student at Roosevelt High.  (Courtesy: Partnership for Los Angeles Schools)

Joan Sullivan walked into a tough crowd at 20^th Street Elementary School in South Los Angeles in May 2016. Three dozen teachers and staff in yellow spirit shirts stood at the back of the room, most of them with their arms crossed, while in the audience nearly 200 parents with their children sat divided, holding signs like “Don’t privatize our schools” and “Teach my children to read.”

A majority of the parents had signed a petition calling for a “parent trigger,” which allows parents to take control of a failing campus through the state’s Parent Empowerment Act. As a compromise, Superintendent Michelle King asked Sullivan, the CEO of Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, to address the parents and teachers, laying out what the organization could offer if it stepped in to lead the school.

“That was a really intense meeting,” Sullivan recalled. “I remember feeling it was an extremely tricky situation there, with all groups feeling a deep sense of investment in the community and no common ground.”

• Read more: As the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools turns 10, a new report shows this unique turnaround model is driving big gains at struggling campuses

It turned out that parents and teachers on all sides liked the tall, thin woman with the short-cropped hair who was presenting this new school model. Sullivan talked about curriculum successes at neighboring schools and how this wasn’t simply an infusion of one-time funding or a staff shake-up. They trusted her presentation, and a parent trigger lawsuit was averted. Now, two years after the Partnership added 20th Street to its slate of LA schools, all teachers and staff remain.

“We liked her, she seemed like a strong leader, and we believed she would bring much-needed change to the school,” said Omar Calvillo, one of the parents who initiated the parent trigger. “People are happy.”

Joan Sullivan and Rowena Lagrosa, of LAUSD Parent Services, at the opening of 20th Street Elementary’s Parent Center.

The Partnership worked with Mario Garcielita, the principal who had been brought in that year by the district to address the parents’ concerns. It held a weeklong summer training and planning session for teachers, paid for by the Partnership. And some teachers got an additional stipend to attend more intensive leadership training.

Almost exactly a year later, Sullivan and the district opened the school’s first parent center with a bank of new computers. Murals were designed and painted by students, a full-time physical education coach was hired, and families and staff were embracing the Partnership’s role.

“At 20th Street, there was a lot of trepidation about our coming in, and we didn’t change a single teacher, yet things changed,” Sullivan said. “We have the same students, the same teachers, the same parents, the same community, the same neighborhood, and we’re seeing growth now two years running. It’s a very cohesive and capable staff.”

Garcielita credits Sullivan and the Partnership. He said 80 percent of the K-2 students are meeting literacy benchmarks — up from 35 percent before he started there — the computer ratio is 1-to-1 for upper grades, and community partners have risen from seven to 25. They have also held 110 workshops at the school for parents in the past year. And the school saw a 19 percentage point increase in the number of students proficient in math on state tests last year, the largest increase in the whole district.

“I am not satisfied, we need to do more, but we do need to celebrate some of our successes,” Garcielita said. “I credit the Partnership with helping me in my growth as a school leader through their extensive trainings. The collaboration between the district and the Partnership is working well.”

Sullivan, 44, has become a well-known and well-liked feature in Los Angeles education. She gets praise from all factions of the often-divided LA Unified school board, and her 18 schools — once the lowest-performing in the district and the state — are showing strong growth. Her name is repeatedly brought up as LA Unified seeks a new superintendent.

“It is incredibly humbling to have one’s name mentioned for a position as important as superintendent of LAUSD, because my life’s work has been in large urban districts,”  Sullivan said. “But the district needs to be truly deliberative about this decision. Whoever is the next superintendent will ideally be there long enough to build a vision with a broad base of constituents and see it through over a decade or more.”

Joan Sullivan poses with 107th Street Elementary School fifth grader Hailey Velasquez at a recent playground unveiling ceremony  (Courtesy: Partnership for Los Angeles Schools)

Marshall Tuck, a candidate for state superintendent of public instruction, preceded Sullivan as the Partnership’s CEO. “I would put Joan Sullivan in charge of any school in any district in the country. She is a strong educator, understands teaching and learning extremely well, and has an incredibly high bar for the kind of education all kids deserve,” he said.

Sullivan grew up on a farm in New Jersey in the mid-1970s. Her mother was a professional photographer. Her father, a former Jesuit priest, primarily raised Sullivan and her nine siblings. Eight in her family are teachers. “That’s partly an outgrowth of the values that my parents had,” she said.

At about 8 years old, she was challenged by her mother to read up to 50 books over the summer, getting $1 for each book.

“At the time it seemed like a phenomenal sum, so I read a lot of books,” Sullivan said. “I ended up becoming entranced with books and developed a love for the word and for literary adventures.”

After she graduated from Yale, she worked on New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley’s 2000 presidential campaign. She wrote about the experience in a well-received 2002 memoir, “An American Voter: My Love Affair with Presidential Politics.”

By 30, she had opened her own small high school in New York, the Bronx Academy of Letters, then came to Los Angeles in 2009 as Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s deputy mayor of education.

A decade ago she married her partner, Ama Nyamekye, the founding executive director of Educators for Excellence Los Angeles. They are raising three daughters: Esme, Zola, and Asha. Even with their joint education experience, they found it hard to get their daughter Asha into a public school.

“It took two of us, who are as empowered and immersed in the system as possible, at least 10 visits to a local elementary school to get her into an under-enrolled, non-magnet district school,” Sullivan said. “That’s a personal anecdote, but an example of what parents have to deal with, and a fundamental access issue and opportunity for our district.”

She said that red tape and inconsistency frustrate parents. “I feel strongly that one thing that makes teachers and families cynical is having a parade of leaders. It’s important to have a confident leader who has a sustained focus over a period of time. That’s what people trust.”

The Partnership, Sullivan added, “is a hybrid, a third way. We are an independent nonprofit that has the latitude to innovate in a district context. We very intentionally accept the conditions of the district so that there is a genuine pathway to scale. We want to be where we can find solutions that can benefit not just some but all students in LA Unified, and most especially those with the greatest needs.”

*Updated Feb. 15

Despite parents’ pleas to deal now with a coming deficit that could require huge cuts, a narrow majority of LA Unified’s school board on Tuesday approved a new contract that commits the district to paying for its employees’ generous health benefits at current levels for the next three years.

The contract passed 4-2, with board members Nick Melvoin and Ref Rodriguez casting no votes. The eight labor unions covered by the contract — representing 60,000 employees — must also approve the deal. United Teachers Los Angeles held their vote last week, but no results will be announced until all unions have voted.

“It’s not the fault of our employees, but we need to secure more funding and also need to start living within our means,” said Melvoin, who said he was haunted by a chart presented at a meeting last fall about the spiraling healthcare costs and showed that by 2030 more than half of the district’s budget will go toward health benefits. “This deal is a baby step in the right direction, but we’re in a dire financial situation that requires at least an adult step.”

Rodriguez, who joined Melvoin in voting against the deal, was concerned about the contract’s length and said he didn’t want the decision to result in skyrocketing costs that could increase class sizes. “It may be a deal we regret three years from now,” he said.

While the majority of board members voted for the contract, they did vow to be tougher in ongoing salary negotiations, responding to criticism from more than a dozen parents who showed up to protest the contract for not addressing a deficit that’s less than three years away.

Although the nation’s second-largest school district does not have the highest salaries, it does have some of the most generous medical benefits. Employees and their families pay no monthly premiums and receive full health benefits after they retire.

“Our employees need health care,” said board President Mónica García, who voted for the deal. But she acknowledged, “We cannot afford our current plan, and the services we provide our students are limited.”

García agreed with the parents who had harsh words about the contract during public comment. “For me, there’s great value in the containment of costs,” she said, adding that she knows the benefits bring good teachers to the district. “Here’s the challenge: I’m supporting this deal, but I also hear the parents who are concerned and believe this action is irresponsible. We need to consider what it looks like if (the district) did go bankrupt. I will count on leaders of the district to deal with our realities.”

Those realities include $13.6 billion in unfunded liabilities for employee benefits, for which only $350 million has been set aside, according to the district’s labor negotiator Najeeb Khoury. He said Tuesday that a new actuary report is expected next week that may show that the district’s Other Post-Employee Benefits (OPEB) obligations will be even higher.

In the deal, the district agreed to continue to pay $1.1 billion per year for health and welfare benefits, which will save the district $190 million over the three years of the contract. In return, the unions will allow a reserve fund that now totals nearly $300 million to cover any increases in costs. Healthcare costs have been rising about 6 percent a year, and in the past the district has covered those increases.

García, Kelly Gonez, George McKenna, and Scott Schmerelson voted for the deal, with Rodriguez and Melvoin against it. Student school board member Benjamin Holtzman voted no, but his vote doesn’t count in the overall tally. Richard Vladovic was not feeling well and left before the vote.

Interim Superintendent Vivian Ekchian also announced that parents will have some input into labor contracts through a new committee that is being formed. It’s not a seat at the negotiating table, which parents have been asking for, but it was a nod toward the importance of parent voice. “I look forward to having parents on the committee who will speak for the students and so we can stabilize the district in the next two years,” Ekchian said.

But Katie Braude, executive director of the parent advocacy group Speak UP, who spoke to the board on Tuesday, said the committee is not enough. “It’s too late for committees,” she said in a statement afterward. “We needed action today that we did not get. The board has failed to uphold its fundamental responsibility to the children of our district by refusing to take the necessary actions to save LAUSD from insolvency before it’s too late. The result will be class size increases, program cuts, and massive teacher layoffs as more money flows outside the classroom every year.”

Braude added, “This deal is bad for kids. It’s bad for teachers, and it’s bad for the future of the district.”

Parent Paul Robak, who has children at Ramón C. Cortines School of Visual and Performing Arts and at Dodson Middle School Magnet, told the board Tuesday, “We have to get deals we can afford as a district. If we go over that fiscal cliff, we will not have that, and the district will be split up or dissolved.”

Malika Mirkasymova, who has two children at Paul Revere Charter Middle School and Magnet Center and was the president and treasurer of the Parent Teacher Organization at Brentwood Science Magnet Elementary, thanked Melvoin and expressed frustration about the vote. “Teachers will not benefit, this is irresponsible, there will be no money left.”

Meanwhile, the school board approved 1,600 Reduction in Force notices for senior management employees and other non-school-based certified administrators. The same number of notices were sent out last year, and in the end, 115 employees lost their administrative jobs but most were reassigned to other positions. The year before, 1,700 notices were given to administrators, but all of them ended up keeping their jobs.

* This article was updated to correct what the health benefits offer.

This is the chart Nick Melvoin cited, from the Health & Benefits report given by the district in November.

As LA Unified continues to lose 12,000 students every year, administrators will be notified of expected job losses, restrictions could be made on how to spend one-time funds coming from the state, and labor partners will be called on to be part of the solution.

Next year’s projected enrollment decline was reported Tuesday by Chief Financial Officer Scott Price during a budget update to the school board, which made no decisions on how to offset what equals a loss of about $130 million a year — roughly what the district receives in per-pupil funding for 12,000 students.

He reminded the board of the coming deficit in school year 2020-21, projected at $245 million, and that the board must decide how it will stay out of the red.

Board members discussed various options, including closing schools, and asked for examples of what other school districts are doing to offset deficits.

“The loss of 12,000 students, that’s the equivalent of closing 12 major high schools,” said board Vice President Nick Melvoin. “Are we sending out RIF (reduction in force) notices and pink slips?”

Board President Mónica García said that next week Interim Superintendent Vivian Ekchian will discuss with the board a plan to send RIF notices to 1,600 administrators. The same number of notices were sent out last year, and in the end, 115 employees lost their administrative jobs but most were reassigned to other positions. The year before, 1,700 notices were given to administrators, but all of them ended up keeping their jobs.

In the past year, the number of administrators has dropped from 2,501 to 2,465 and teachers dropped from 26,558 to 26,046. The number of staff and administrators needs to reflect the declining student population, an Independent Financial Review Panel warned the district just over two years ago. “The district’s loss of 100,000 students would indicate that the district staff would need to be reduced by about 10,000 staff, including administrators, classified and certificated personnel, for a savings of about $500 million per year.”

Last year, Superintendent Michelle King mandated a 30 percent reduction in budgets from all administrative departments.

Ekchian said she will be discussing with the district’s labor partners the loss of enrollment and the need to address the upcoming deficit.

“We will also be working with the labor partners because this is a challenge we all face together, so we will have to come up with solutions together,” Ekchian said.

Price also said that the district will take back up to $100 million in unused money from school budgets at the end of the school year.

Melvoin told Price he understood that the board used to have a policy of using one-time funds solely to pay down liabilities, and he asked the CFO if the board could vote to do that again. Price said they could, adding, “it would be a wise policy.”

Melvoin also noted that giving raises would also cut into the district’s attempt at lowering the projected deficit, which Price confirmed.

Board member Richard Vladovic agreed that something must be done because “the district is hemorrhaging very significantly.”

García pointed to examples such as dual language programs that are attracting families and wanted to make sure they weren’t cut.

“Some places definitely deserve more investment,” García said. “We have to be more public with the choices the board has, and when we choose not to reduce the workforce at the rate of student population, that’s a choice.”

She said the board needs to be more transparent about what choices it has. “If we have a choice to close schools and we don’t, that’s a choice. We have to be really conscious that every Tuesday we are making decisions either making the plate heavier or lightening the load.”

Also Tuesday, in an afternoon closed session, the school board agreed to use the previous search firm to find a new superintendent. The choice will save the district at least $160,000, because a clause in the contract with Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates states it will conduct a search “at no additional cost barring expenses” if the superintendent leaves within two years. Michelle King, who is battling cancer, announced her plan to retire just six days before the two-year mark.

The discussions for the superintendent search have so far been mostly in closed session, and late Tuesday García said, “The board is working on an organizing process around hiring a superintendent. This is preliminary work that we need to do.”

García said many school board members have already reached out to stakeholders for input into what they want for a superintendent. “Some of this work will be on their own,” she said. “Some board members will have community forums and focus groups, some have one-on-one conversations. As a group, we reviewed the surveys and information they came up with in the past.”

Some of those forums held across the district yielded disappointing turnout. The district also conducted an online survey.

“There will be an opportunity for electronic feedback, but we haven’t yet figured that out,” García said. “There is good movement forward and good momentum among the board.”

Washington Elementary students with their new library books. (Courtesy: Puente Strategies)

* Updated Feb. 9

Kids rarely stepped foot in the library at Washington Elementary in Compton.

“It was dusty and damp in there, it was not very welcoming for kids at all,” Principal Diana Phillips said. “We had a lot of very old books that children were not interested in and none of the modern titles. Kids didn’t use it, and teachers didn’t schedule time in the library.”

But now the library is buzzing. A team of volunteers from Access Books and school parents spent a Saturday last fall rehabbing the space and stocking its shelves. The school, which serves 420 students in a mostly Latino community, now hosts puppet shows, parent trainings, and school elections. There’s even a small stage for students to perform and a hub for small assemblies.

“It is now the heart of the school,” Phillips said. “It’s a very lively place, and it was done for no cost.”

Phillips saw how a team of volunteers from Access Books transformed a library at Jefferson Elementary, where she worked previously, and called Rebecca Constantino, the founder and head volunteer of the program.

“Rebecca has a reputation at a lot of these poor neighborhood schools, and they came in over a weekend and stocked the shelves and painted,” Phillips said. “It is now so colorful and the students love it.”

Budget cuts after the recession forced the closure of some LA Unified libraries. By the fall of 2016, all had reopened, but with outdated books. 

Today, LA Unified has 17 elementary schools without a library aide, and 21 high schools without a teacher librarian. Part-time aides work at 27 other high schools, even though it’s recommended that high schools have a full librarian to teach research techniques. State guidelines say there should be 28 books for every student, but at LA Unified, it’s 18 books per student.

Board members last year passed a resolution asking for a report, which recommended the district spend $15.9 million to upgrade its book collection and $1.8 million for additional staff, but no money was added to the library budgets for either staff or books.

So school libraries — especially in poor neighborhoods — have had to depend on charitable groups such as Access Books, Heart of America and the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles. Access Books is the only group solely focused on improving libraries and run completely by volunteers.

For nearly two decades, Access Books has helped 270 schools serving 188,700 children by giving out nearly 2 million new books — mostly in LA Unified. They’ve recently expanded to San Bernardino and will soon be in schools in Northern California.

“We want to save libraries, we won’t go into a school where there’s not a commitment by the principal to keep a library,” said Constantino, who started the nonprofit program out of her car 18 years ago out of concern for children without good libraries. “It shows a real lack of vision to close your school libraries. We have to know that the principal and the parents want a good, strong library.”

In 1999, Constantino saw that a private school in the upscale community of Brentwood was tossing nearly brand new books because the library had no space. She put as many as she could in her car — she later figured she could fit about 4,000 books — and took them to an underserved school.

“We are shocked by the disparity in libraries and believe that no matter what part of the city a child lives in – every child deserves access to a safe, beautiful school library filled with books they want to read,” said Constantino, who has a doctorate in language, literacy and learning. “If you make your library better, your test scores will get better. Kids want to read.”

A typical library project takes about five months to put together with the volunteer-run group selecting titles that are not only popular among young readers but also culturally relevant and working with principals to plan for the right murals to make the space more inviting for children. Then on a single day, usually a weekend, about 40 volunteers and parents, as well as the principal and librarian, paint the walls with the murals, add comfortable furniture like a leather couch and reading rug, and about 5,000 books. The trained volunteers organize the library and process the books according to district standards.

District officials were skeptical at first — it took six years to even get a meeting with them, Constantino said. The district wanted to make sure that cataloging the books was done in the same way as the rest of the district, and that no labor rules or library regulations were violated.

Esther Sinofsky, the administrative coordinator of Integrated Library and Textbook Support Services for the district, praised the group’s work and said they’ve developed a “productive relationship.” 

“Access Books provides materials that are age-appropriate and aligned with the curriculum. The organization has upgraded several of our school libraries, creating inviting environments that support student success,” Sinofsky said.

Access Books has a waiting list of principals who have requested help through their website. 

* This article has been updated with new numbers of schools and children served by Access Books, the date of the work in the Washington Elementary library, and the process of improving the libraries. 

In the contract signed last time with Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates of Rosemont, Ill., there was a two-year window clause that says, “If the Superintendent departs from the position during the first year under any circumstances or within (2) years if the majority of the Board is still in place, HYA will conduct a new search for the Board at no additional cost barring expenses.”

King announced her departure on Jan. 5, which is six days from her two-year anniversary start date of Jan. 11. King is battling cancer and plans to officially retire June 30; Vivian Ekchian was approved as interim superintendent. Five of the board members are the same as during the last search. Nick Melvoin and Kelly Gonez joined the board last summer.

“It was super close timing,” said board President Mónica García after the closed session that was held Tuesday afternoon to discuss the superintendent search. “The board had a productive conversation and we are advancing work on the superintendent search and we are expecting our attorney David Holmquist to bring us an amendment to the HYA contract to approve at the next meeting.”

García added, “And it will save the district money.”

• Read more: LAUSD board seeks ‘disruption’ from next superintendent

The last search stretched a few weeks longer than planned, and HYA could have charged $1,000 a day for the extra time, but it didn’t ask for any more than their initial $160,000 fee. The district ended up spending $90,000 more, including dinners and travel to interview candidates.

Holmquist said that the board still needs to decide how broad the recruitment effort will be and perhaps put a cap on the extra costs. “HYA has agreed to honor the provision in their earlier agreement to perform a subsequent recruitment at no charge — save certain costs,” he said. “We are finalizing a new contract to reflect this commitment while the board considers the scope of the recruitment effort.”

Before the afternoon closed session on Tuesday, members of the HYA team were spotted waiting to meet with the board. At the moment, HYA has 20 ongoing superintendent searches, but only five are districts with more than 10,000 students — the largest is Linn Benton Lincoln Education Service District in Albany, Oregon, with 35,000 students.

• Read more from The 74: With Churn at the Nation’s 3 Largest School Districts, Experts Agree: A Good Superintendent Is Hard to Find

García didn’t see the multiple other searches as a problem for HYA and said, “They’re busy for a reason. They did good work for us before.”

The firm has placed 45 superintendents in the nation’s 100 largest school districts, and HYA President Hank Gmitro said previously that about 60 percent of the searches in larger school districts end up picking someone from outside the district. But he pointed out that if a district knows who they’re going to pick internally, they generally don’t go through a formal search process, which is what happened the last two times before King.

One of the big questions before the board is whether the district will again seek widespread input from students, staff, and the community with surveys and forums. Turnout was considered disappointing after only 900 people showed up, a fraction of the estimated 1.4 million employees, students, and parents in the district.

Although HYA has conducted other searches where candidates were known to the public, they strongly encouraged LA Unified last time to keep all the candidates secret to ensure that the best candidates could apply without jeopardizing their present positions. HYA and board members said that speculation about who was applying for the position last time was widely inaccurate and not helpful to the search.

Although the firm is based in Illinois, the LA search team included former San Diego Superintendent Rudy Castruita, former Anaheim Superintendent Joseph M. Farley, and former Montebello Superintendent Darline Robles, whom some of the board members knew and had worked with previously.

The board is expected to formally vote on the contract at the next school board meeting on Feb. 13.

In the context of the search for its next superintendent, LA Unified’s school board is asking existential questions about how hard it should be pushing to disrupt the status quo in a system that serves more than 700,000 students. While none of the conversations came particularly full-circle in a special meeting of the board on Tuesday, a variety of ideas were thrown out about the future of a system that continues to grapple with achievement, equity, and operational challenges. 

Tuesday was the fourth time the board has met since Superintendent Michelle King announced she will retire at the end of June because she is fighting cancer, but it was the first time they addressed the superintendent search in public. Even then, specifics of the search were left to the afternoon’s closed-door session. The five and a half hours in public were spent hammering out goals.

Board members agreed that “disruption” is needed to address the district’s most pressing problems, which they listed as low-performing schools, fiscal woes, and increased cooperation between independent charter and district schools.

On Wednesday, board President Mónica García said the need for disruption doesn’t necessarily rule out a superintendent candidate from within the district, which could include “a graduate, a parent, or an employee from the district.”

But it should be one someone who is not afraid of change. “We need some resistance or we will never change,” George McKenna said at the board meeting. 

•Read more: Exclusive: LAUSD plans to use same search firm to find a new superintendent — and it gets a break on the cost

The board’s goal Tuesday was to iron out a “declaration” for the school district, crafting a set of values to use when assessing superintendent candidates. They agreed their new leader should:

• lead with urgency 

• increase student achievement

• ensure economic security

• get every child college- and career-ready.

But there was less agreement on how to get to change. Their ideas included:

• Pushing more dollars to classrooms and students

• Listening to what principals need to improve schools

• Giving local districts a chance to be more innovative through waivers and autonomy in hiring staff

• Decentralizing services and resources

• Piloting a program to improve middle schools

• Moving to a portfolio model where charters are more a part of the district and include them in the new unified enrollment system

• Making the charter division smaller and more aggressively closing low-performing charter schools

• Focusing on turning around 12 to 15 underperforming schools.

“I don’t know that we collectively yet have a sense of what are the things we need to do differently,” Kelly Gonez said. “I think it’s important because change is disruptive. There’s a tension between acting fast and making long-term and lasting change.”

García said Wednesday that “it is exciting that the board is finally ready for some real change.”

Vivian Ekchian, intermediate superintendent, and board President Mónica García work on a mission statement together.

She said she is studying a plan approved by the board in 2000 to give local districts more autonomies in their hiring and allow more innovation in teaching. 

McKenna noted that “our biggest split is on the issue of charter schools, that is the elephant. Is it the belief that our role as board members is to primarily protect and monitor this district, or are we elected to serve all students no matter where they are and it’s OK that they go to the charter schools?”

Nick Melvoin, the board’s vice president, noted that parents in his district are often confused about the various models of schools in the district, and many parents have one child going to an independent charter and another attending a district school. They pick what is best for their child.

“That’s why I’m pushing for unified enrollment,” Melvoin said. “And maybe we should let charter schools do their thing and shrink our charter school division, and if they are not performing, shut them down.”

Charter schools are authorized by the district for five-year terms, and the charter division has an exhaustive oversight process that Melvoin would like to minimize. “We’re responsible for all kids and all families. And this board spends too much time on schools we don’t govern.”

García said her district has 61 charter schools, which opened to alleviate school overcrowding and have become the best solution for many parents. She said that those who have sought to maintain the status quo and an unwillingness to change by labor negotiators have kept some schools from succeeding.

After the meeting, García noted there were some tense moments during the frank discussion. “I am pleased with the board’s work and energy, and there was authentic dialogue which is always welcome. I feel like this tension we are experiencing is part of leading in Los Angeles. How do we address individual real angst and challenge the collective rules that we operate under?”

* Updated Jan. 25

The California governor’s new budget proposes giving more to schools than ever before — $78.3 billion — but it’s not going to keep LA Unified from driving off its fiscal cliff in three years, according to the district’s chief financial officer.

With steady enrollment declines and crushing pension debt, the district faces a 5.1 percent deficit, or $380 million, by the 2020-21 school year, CFO Scott Price told the school board last week. Even with Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposed infusion of money from the state, LA Unified’s deficit will still be 3.3 percent, or $245 million, in three years, he said. An outside auditor reported to the board at the same meeting that by last summer, the district had a negative $5.1 billion in liabilities over assets.

That deficit could be whittled down depending on how the school board decides to spend the extra $137 million the district could get, Price said. The board will weigh options, which could include paying into long-term employee benefits, spending it on attendance and enrollment incentives, adding new instructional programs, or giving it to employees.

“We have to decide what to do,” Price told the board in his report last Tuesday. “We can offset what we can to avoid the financial cliff.”

Price said there’s “still work to be done” with the district’s fiscal stabilization plan but didn’t point to future cuts. Other schools districts throughout the state grappling with deficits are slashing budgets and closing schools.

This month’s budget proposal from Brown, who will give his final State of the State address on Thursday, raises California’s per-student spending from about $10,000 to $16,000, which helped expedite last week’s tentative agreement on health benefits with eight labor unions, according to school board members.

“I am so happy we got the extra money, and it may have some effect on the negotiations, but I wish it was ongoing,” said board member Richard Vladovic. “It may have dangled bigger carrots, but it’s not enough. Those funds will run out and we may not be here in three years.”

Board Vice President Nick Melvoin said new state funds will allow California to improve its rank in per-pupil spending, moving from 46th out of 50 to 41st. (Other measures rank the state 37th.) The additional money also helps with labor negotiations, he said. “When I was a teacher, I chose the district over any charter schools because of salary and good benefits.” But “we still need to have tough conversations and make courageous decisions to deal with the debt.”

The district’s debt load is also growing and by last summer was $512.6 million more than in the previous year. An outside auditor’s report to the board showed that the district had a negative $5.1 billion in liabilities over assets in fiscal year 2016-17. The main culprit is the district’s choice to not pay down what it owes for retiree healthcare, the major part of its liability for Other Post-Employment Benefits, or OPEB.

Each year the district starts out with the intention of paying into that fund, but it’s one of the first things that gets cut as the budget is hashed out, Price said.

The district shouldn’t expect much help from the federal government either, and California may well see cuts, according to another report presented last Tuesday by the district’s federal lobbyist, The Raben Group.

“Washington is a challenging place right now, it is rather unpredictable,” said the firm’s Michael Yudin, who noted that under the new federal tax reform bill, state and local tax deductions will have long-range negative effects on school districts. He also said uncertainty over the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program and overhauls in student aid will not be good for local students. “It is a shame kids are affected by the politics of the day.”

Brown’s proposal would fully fund the Local Control Funding Formula two years early, increase the cost-of-living adjustment from 2.15 percent to 2.51 percent, provide more for special education, and pay for a one-time boost of $295 per student, which amounts to $140 million for LA Unified. After the budget is finished in June, the district will decide how to spend the money.

School board member Richard Vladovic suggested at the meeting that the money go to raises for school district employees. None of the other board members had specific suggestions.

Former school board member David Tokofsky told the board during public comment they should lobby for a bigger chunk of state’s surplus. Interim Superintendent Vivian Ekchian said there are already plans to head to Sacramento with school board President Mónica García to do just that.

“The governor already put $4 billion into a rainy day fund,” Tokofsky said. “What you need to do is get a sunny day for instruction.”

* This article has been updated to correct the projected deficit. 

Source: LA Unified

Los Angeles teachers rally over benefits in November. (Photo: UTLA)

A tentative agreement on health benefits marks the first time an LA Unified labor contract has directly taken on the district’s soaring healthcare costs. But watchdogs say the deal doesn’t go far enough in tackling the district’s standing debt — and some school board members warn it may actually make the next round of negotiations all that more difficult.

The district’s promise not to make any cuts to existing benefits in the next three years shows how slowly change comes to behemoth district, which pays for benefits for nearly 225,000 employees and retirees under the eight unions covered by the contract, who have some of the most generous health benefits in the country. Both current and retired employees pay no premiums for themselves or their dependents for healthcare, which includes dental, vision, life insurance, and other benefits.

No one thinks the deal comes close to fixing its enormous problems with $13.6 billion in healthcare liabilities, but it is a first for the district that has traditionally paid for healthcare increases. Another first: the agreement creates a committee to study ways of reducing the unfunded liability for retirement benefits, which are more generous than for employees of Los Angeles City or County governments, the city of Detroit, and of the school districts of New York, San Diego, Long Beach, and Chicago.

Under the tentative deal announced late Thursday, the district agreed to continue to pay $1.1 billion per year for health and welfare benefits, which will save the district $190 million over the three years of the contract. In return, the unions will allow a reserve fund that now totals nearly $300 million to cover any increases in costs. Each union must still vote to approve the deal.

“This is an important step toward addressing our financial challenges,” board President Mónica García said. “We will no longer be increasing our yearly healthcare spending levels, that is significant. This is truly a historic agreement.”

But Katie Braude, co-founder of the parent coalition Speak UP, said the deal shows the district hasn’t taken “serious action” to tackle its debt, “which threatens to bankrupt the district and siphon off a huge portion of education funding within 15 years, leaving scraps for kids in the classroom.”

Healthcare and pensions will eat up half of all available funds by 2031-32, but the district so far has chosen not to pay that down so it can maintain its reserves. LA Unified is the only school district on a list of top 10 government entities across the country that can’t afford their pension obligations — the top spot going to the city of Detroit.

Braude also criticized the district for not attempting to involve parents in the negotiations. “Like so much at LAUSD, parents were shut out of this closed-door process. Kids are just as affected by these contract talks as employees, and yet they are not represented in the process. Employees have unions. The district has lawyers and labor negotiators. But who is representing the students? Decisions are made without including the one group that will honestly and authentically represent kids, and with a lack of transparency that ensures that the public has no opportunity for input.”

Ben Austin, who last year launched Kids Coalition to put a kids-first agenda into practice at the district, agreed parents need to be involved in contract negotiations. He said the deal was a step in the right direction, and he praised García and the board for moving to contain health costs.

“It is just worth noting that this board was left with only bad and worse options because of the leadership of the previous board,” Austin said. “They were like candy men giving away candy and suddenly they all got cavities and now they are saying they are out of Novocain. This board is left with making the tough decision.”

Board Vice President Nick Melvoin said that although he isn’t thrilled with the tentative deal, it is moving in the right direction. Decisions about employee benefits, like this year’s 2 percent salary increase and that the new deal will cover a full three years, had already been made before he joined the board last year. But next time, labor partners should expect more tough conversations, he said.

“This agreement doesn’t go far enough,” said Melvoin, who campaigned on the need to solve the district’s debt and give parents a role in labor deals. “I agree with the frustration of parents, and they are right that we need more parents at the table, more reasonable concessions, and to make sure that a kindergartner today won’t have half as much money when they’re in high school, which is what the projections show.”

Board member Richard Vladovic, who wasn’t involved in these negotiations but has been in the past, said the deal “maintains benefits and looks for savings around the edges,” but is “not historic” and employees need to be aware of the high stakes.

“Employees have to understand that if we can’t pay the bills, the house will collapse,” he said. “In order to have health benefits, you have to have a district, and you can’t do that if you’re bankrupt. Bankruptcy can sneak up on you from nowhere.”

He said the district and its unions should have negotiated longer. “I think everybody rushed in with their positions, and I would have continued the dialogue,” he said. “Nobody wants to confront the reality of a really bad future.” Next time, he said he won’t sign another contract that doesn’t do more to solve the district’s debt issues.

The unions called the agreement a victory. “After years of district threats to our healthcare, it is a victory to have all unions remain steadfast against any concessions. This is an agreement that is good for employees, good for the district and good for our students and our communities. LAUSD must continue to attract and retain top-notch employees, and that includes offering fully-funded healthcare,” according to the union statement.

Interim Superintendent Vivian Ekchian said in statement the deal “provides stability and is good for our students, employees, and the community.”

Max Arias, SEIU Local 99’s executive director who was part of the negotiations, called the deal a win-win for the district and employees and said it should pass easily in his membership, despite the fact that many of his workers who are part-time laborers don’t have health benefits.

“Many of our members are also parents of children in the district, so it is important that we do not increase the health costs and maintain the benefits,” Arias said. “But we don’t think the district is in imminent danger of bankruptcy. We know there are long-term problems and we want to help with a pathway to pay them, but it’s five or more years down the line.”

Last week LA Unified’s chief financial officer confirmed that the district will run a deficit starting in the 2020-21 school year.

The toughest hurdle in the negotiations was getting the unions to agree to tap the reserve fund so the district can stop automatically paying for increased benefits costs, said Najeeb Khoury, the district’s chief negotiator.

“For the first time ever we are freezing our contributions which is a pretty important step, and we have more work to do in the future. We made progress with this deal. Getting to the point of the freeze is a big important step and a big hump to get over.”

Khoury said the budget savings do not affect upcoming bargaining with each of the eight unions involving salaries, but he said, “Given our structural deficit, an increase in cost of labor would be difficult.”

Another of the last points agreed to was forming a committee to address how to cut the district’s unfunded liability for retirement benefits, Khoury said. The group will also make sure there is no increase in the percentage of the district’s budget that goes to healthcare.

The committee’s members have not been chosen, Khoury said, but they will have a year to bring suggestions to the superintendent. There will be three district-appointed representatives and three from the unions, and the unions get to choose the chairperson.

As for the call to involve parents in labor negotiations, Khoury said there could be legal obstacles because all unions would have to agree to them being part of the bargaining process.

Austin said, “It is a bit insulting for the district to say that there are legal problems having a seat at the table because this directly impacts kids.”

Ekchian and Khoury will present the tentative agreement to the full board for a vote at the next regular board meeting on Feb. 13, and the unions must each approve the deal in the meantime.

At the same meeting, Vladovic said he is planning to introduce a resolution asking the district’s health providers, Kaiser Permanente and Blue Shield, to improve urgent care waiting times and speed up the process of getting to a specialist. He pointed out that the district will be negotiating with healthcare providers in two months and “we should get our money’s worth in terms of dollars we spend.”

Michelle King two years ago when she was introduced as Los Angeles’ new superintendent. (Photo: Getty Images – Mel Melcon/Los Angeles Times)

LA Unified’s school board members want a new superintendent they can all support.

They would like to get a unanimous decision, as it was with Michelle King’s selection two years ago. They also want public input on the choice and to have a new leader in place by the time school starts in August.

“Yes, I would like to see it be unanimous,” board President Mónica García said about the next pick for superintendent. “It is one of the most important jobs for the board, to pick the next leader for our schools.”

García said the board has committed to weekly conversations about the superintendent search, to be discussed at the Tuesday board meetings, in both open and closed sessions. No decisions have been made about hiring a search firm, getting community input, or setting deadlines, García said.

In their closed session meeting Tuesday, García said the board approved the contract for King’s interim replacement, Vivian Ekchian, and that next steps weren’t discussed. The superintendent search didn’t come up during the public afternoon meeting.

• Read more from The 74: With Churn at the Nation’s 3 Largest School Districts, Experts Agree: A Good Superintendent is Hard to Find

King announced Jan. 5 that she will leave her job by the end of June because she is fighting cancer. She has been on medical leave since September. She will officially retire from her $350,000-a-year job on June 30.

For two of the seven board members, this will be their first time to be part of a superintendent selection. Nick Melvoin and Kelly Gonez were elected to the board last spring.

“A unanimous decision would be ideal, but I can’t speak for my fellow board members,” Gonez said. “It’s a mutual decision, we will have to choose the candidate, and the candidate has to choose us. Making the decision on a unified front may be more reassuring to the person coming in, than doing so with divisions.”

Gonez added, “For me, ideally, I would like to have a new superintendent before the next school year. That would be six months or so, but I’m not married to any particular number if it takes longer to find the right person, then that’s probably the right decision to make.”

Board member Ref Rodriguez, who last fall stepped down as board president as he faces criminal charges related to campaign donations, said he would also like to see a superintendent in place by the beginning of the next school year. He added, “I would prefer a 7-0 vote and believe we can get there.”

The last search started in September 2015, when Ramon Cortines said he would retire after serving three times as superintendent. The board in January 2016 decided on King, an insider with more than 30 years at the district in positions including teacher, principal, and associate superintendent.

At the open meeting this week, the board said nothing about the superintendent search.

Although Gonez said she wants to see an open and transparent process in the superintendent selection, she is not sure she would go as far as her predecessor Mónica Ratliff, who fought for a more open process throughout the last superintendent search. Ratliff asked for the names of the top three choices be named publicly and be invited to a forum, as had been done in past LA Unified superintendent searches.

Current board members Scott Schmerelson and Richard Vladovic agreed with Ratliff and voted with her for the candidate names to be released; they lost 3-4.   

During the last search, García led the charge to have a select panel of community members review the superintendent candidates in secret because she wanted more stakeholder input into the selection. Rodriguez agreed with her, but they lost the vote 2-5, and García walked out of the meeting.

For the last search, the board picked the headhunter search firm of Hazard, Young, Attea & Associates, which included some former superintendents from neighboring districts. It had placed 45 superintendents in the nation’s 100 largest school districts and charged $160,000 for the search that yielded King. They said more than 100 applicants applied.

The board members also wouldn’t say whether they would prefer an insider like King or someone from outside the district. The HYA search firm said that about 60 percent of districts that they have helped have chosen outsiders.

As diverse as the board has been in the past, García said unanimity can be found.

“What’s important is that we put in the time and honor and respect in electing a superintendent that will serve us best,” García said.

Vivian Ekchian is named interim superintendent for LA Unified.

LA Unified’s school board can begin the search for a new superintendent immediately, the district’s lead attorney said Tuesday, and the board president said members will hold weekly discussions as they move to bring stability to a district that has had nine superintendents in 20 years.

The school board held its first meeting of the new year without any public discussion of Superintendent Michelle King’s announcement last week that she will retire or what the next steps might be. But in a closed session later Tuesday afternoon, the seven-member board unanimously decided to name acting superintendent Vivian Ekchian as interim superintendent.

“We had a very substantial conversation, and the board decided we would talk about this weekly as we figure out the next steps in the search process,” said board President Mónica García after the closed session.

Last Friday, King announced that she will retire when her contract is up for review at the end of June, remaining on medical leave until then, and that cancer is the reason she has been out since September. García, who said she has met with King, said she heard much well-wishing as she toured schools on Monday. “There was a flood of humanity and concern for Dr. King’s well-being,” she said.

LA Unified General Counsel David Holmquist confirmed in an email that “the board is free to begin a search immediately.” He noted that King would need to apply to the California State Teachers’ Retirement System prior to her retirement in order for it to become effective.

In the last superintendent search, which concluded with King’s selection two years ago this month, a search firm was hired for $160,000 to hold more than 100 community forums to seek input on what would make an ideal candidate. About 1,600 people attended, and the search firm also conducted a survey that was taken by nearly 9,500 people. Board members at the time said they thought the input was minimal and unnecessary. The overall expense for that search process was $250,000.

“It will be interesting to see if they want to survey all the stakeholders again,” former board member David Tokofsky said. “But it’s a new board, so they will probably want their constituents to have input.”

Another question is how transparent the process will be this time. LA Unified’s last superintendent search, two years ago, was conducted in secret, unlike in 1997, when Tokofsky was on the board. He said the final three candidates were announced to the public and held a debate before the board picked Ruben Zacarias.

Ekchian’s selection as interim superintendent was unanimous by the board, which asked Holmquist to negotiate and finalize an employment agreement. Ekchian has served as acting superintendent since October, and previously was a local district superintendent, chief labor negotiator, and human resources director. She started with the district as a teacher in 1985.

Chicago’s school district is also headed by an interim CEO after the previous leader resigned under allegations of lying in an ethics investigation. New York City’s chancellor announced in December that she was retiring, so the nation’s three largest school districts are seeking new leadership.

Mayor Eric Garcetti called Ekchian a “wise choice” who “will provide the strong leadership and dedication that our young people deserve, and build on the progress that Michelle King delivered in her time leading the district.”

Garcia said the board will likely discuss the superintendent search in open session at the next regular school board meeting Jan. 16.

California’s plan to improve its schools received some of the toughest criticism in the nation from the federal Department of Education, which came as no surprise to parents and education advocates, who will get another chance this week to tell the state how they want their schools improved.

On Tuesday, the state has invited the public to a stakeholder meeting in Sacramento to weigh in on California’s response to the federal feedback, which the state board published Friday. People can also watch and react online.

Each state is required under the Every Student Succeeds Act (ESSA) to come up with its own plan to improve schools. California submitted its plan in September, and the federal government sent its first feedback Dec. 21, saying the plan was short on details and accountability — which parents and advocates have been saying for months.

Washington gave California two weeks to respond, by Monday, but state officials requested an extension until Jan. 26, so members of the state board of education can iron out their response at their Jan. 18-19 meeting, said California Department of Education spokesman Scott Roark.

“It doesn’t surprise me that there are serious concerns with California’s plan,” said Seth Litt, executive director of Parent Revolution. “It’s disappointing but not surprising. We had serious concerns with the first draft and didn’t see significant improvements” in the plan California filed in September, which shows that the state continues to ignore parent input given over the past year and a half.

“Parent voices were not heard,” Litt said. “Families at underserved schools primarily want to know what the targets are to improve the schools, what happens if the targets are not met, and what is the timeline.”

The federal feedback was extensive, exceeding what most other states received. “California got dinged for a lot more than other states,” said Adam Ezring, director of policy for the Collaborative for Student Success, which together with Bellwether Education Partners is providing an independent review of each state’s school accountability plan. “Parents want to know how their kids’ schools are performing, and how their students are performing.”

Ezring’s organization’s review ranked California’s accountability plan at the bottom, giving it the lowest scores in two categories out of nine, and called the state’s new dashboard that tracks school performance complicated and incomplete. “If the overall system is this confusing, it’s hard to envision how parents make sense of the results of their schools and what that means for their students,” he said.

The federal law mandates that the states explain how they will track student achievement, identify its lowest-performing schools, and provide direct accountability and oversight to improve those schools.

The government’s feedback to California included:

• California’s plan doesn’t show how the state will identify its lowest-performing schools so they can receive extra support.
• It’s not clear how the state will ensure progress is actually made at low-performing schools.
• It doesn’t include high schools in its academic achievement goals.
• It doesn’t show how the state will measure improvements among student subgroups, such as English learners, or provide long-term goals for all English learners.
• It’s not clear how the state will support schools with student subgroups who are consistently underperforming.
• It doesn’t describe how it will hold alternative education schools, such as continuation high schools, accountable.
• It’s not clear that the state will give more weight to academic progress over other measurements of school quality and student success, such as suspension rates.
• It doesn’t describe the extent to which low-income and minority children are being taught by ineffective, out-of-field, or inexperienced teachers.

The preliminary draft to be presented to the state board will be posted on the state’s website along with all the previous drafts.

Rob Manwaring, the senior policy and fiscal adviser for the advocacy group Children Now, said he would be surprised if California could answer all the federal questions so quickly.

“The most egregious issue is that every other state plan I’ve read has a central component of a growth model that shows progress from one year to the next, and that’s still a work in progress in California,” Manwaring said. Parents also need to know when something in their children’s schools needs serious attention, he said.

“The (state) board does a good job at taking a lot of input, and that doesn’t mean they listen very often,” said Manwaring, who has written several letters to the board during the public input process on the ESSA plan. “It doesn’t address equity issues, and the achievement gaps don’t get closed enough.”

But Manwaring said it’s important that parents know that delays in getting the state’s ESSA plan together won’t mean their schools will suddenly lose money. “The federal government has been pretty resistant to cutting states’ funding.”

Bill Lucia, president and CEO of the advocacy group EdVoice, said, “California submitted an incomplete plan and it was confirmed by the feds, it was a dereliction of its mission.

“We’re in 2018 and we have huge achievement gaps,” he said, noting that California now has three years of test scores from the state’s Smarter Balanced achievement tests given each spring. “The results are very dismal. California is last in mathematics when it comes to kids in poverty. … Parents that are disadvantaged and high poverty are seeing their children still not getting an equitable opportunity to learn.”

He added, “For the California economy to be competitive, education is the engine, but it’s not working for an increasing proportion of kids.”

The extent of the federal concerns may signal it will be a long time before California parents start seeing state-mandated improvements in their schools. But that doesn’t prevent individual school districts from acting now to fix their weakest schools, advocates said.

“This is a good opportunity for a district like LAUSD to step up and do something if California does not take it seriously and submits another weak plan,” Litt said.

Michelle King at her second State of the District speech.

Updated Jan. 5

LA Unified Superintendent Michelle King announced Friday afternoon she will be retiring from the district by the end of June as she undergoes treatment for cancer.

King, 56, has been on a medical leave of absence since Sept. 15 after feeling weak during a long school board meeting three days earlier. In October, she said she would remain on leave until January, without explaining the reason.

In a statement Friday, King said, “I have had the honor of serving as the superintendent of LA Unified for two years, although I have been challenged by medical issues for the last several months. During this time, I have been undergoing treatment for cancer. Now, with the progression of my illness, I have made the incredibly difficult decision to retire by June 30. Until then, I will remain on medical leave.”

She thanked the acting superintendent, Vivian Ekchian, and said she is honored to be a graduate of the district and have served it for 33 years.

“I am very thankful for the outpouring of support I have received from the entire LA Unified family, our community partners, and my colleagues across the nation,” King said in the statement. “As I aggressively fight this illness, I ask that you continue to keep me in your thoughts and prayers.”

King is the first African-American woman to run LA Unified, the second-largest school district in the nation. Her top priority has been 100 percent graduation. Last year LA Unified reached an all-time high of 80 percent graduation with the help of a $15 million credit recovery program launched around the time King took over as superintendent.

The district’s communications office said that Ekchian plans to remain as acting superintendent while the board works on a longer term leadership plan.

After 33 years, I have made the difficult decision to retire from the district I love. See my statement here – https://t.co/0sdqWvLc8y

— Michelle King (@MichelleKingLA) January 6, 2018

Before King’s selection two years ago this month, LA’s four-month superintendent search cast a wide net across the country. It also included community, teacher, staff, student, and parent input. Despite some of the board members wanting to have the final three candidates announced to the public, the interviews and search process was held in secrecy. The biggest effort by then-board president Steve Zimmer was to find a candidate that all seven of the diverse board members could agree upon, and they did when they ended up picking an in-house administrator who worked under superintendents John Deasy and Ramon Cortines.  

With King’s retirement, the two largest school districts in the nation will be looking for leaders. New York City Chancellor Carmen Farina announced in late December that she was retiring. Farina, like King, had been a teacher and a principal. Farina, who served as former Chancellor Joel Klein’s top deputy before becoming disillusioned with his reform agenda, was perhaps the best-known and respected educator in the New York district.

New York Mayor Bill de Blasio received mostly plaudits for selecting Farina four years ago at the start of his first term, but observers believe he lost confidence in Farina, blaming her for failing to effectively promote his key reform initiatives, particularly the city’s $600 million Renewal school turnaround program.

In a surprise move in closed session last June, right before two newly elected board members started their terms and swung the board to a pro-reform majority, King’s contract was extended through June 30, 2020, even though it wasn’t up for renewal for another year. She has continued to receive her annual salary of $350,000 while she has been on medical leave.

School board vice president Nick Melvoin said in an interview Friday, “I thought that some time in my five-and-a-half years I would be involved in choosing the leadership of the district when I was elected, but never did I think it would be next week’s project.”

Melvoin, one of the two reform candidates elected last May, also sent an emailed statement. “My thoughts and prayers are with Michelle and her family at this time, as they have been for the last few months, as she so courageously fights a cancer diagnosis. I am continually inspired by her lifelong dedication to this district, not only as superintendent, but also as a student, parent, teacher, principal, and administrator.”

He added, “It was another Dr. King who reminded us that ‘life’s most persistent and urgent question is: what are you doing for others?’ Dr. Michelle King, the first African-American woman to hold the position of Superintendent in LA Unified, has over 33 years of an answer. Her dedication to LA Unified has left an indelible mark on the employees, teachers, students, and families that she has tirelessly served and we will work every day to honor that service.”

Board president Monica Garcia called King “an exemplary educator, inspirational role model, and steadfast leader.”

In a statement, Garcia said, “Having dedicated her career to the district, it is now time for Dr. King to focus her incredible strength and energy on her health. We wholeheartedly support her decision to retire and will continue to keep her in our thoughts and prayers as she faces the challenges ahead.”

Board member Ref Rodriguez said in an email, “While I admire the courage it took for Superintendent King to make this difficult decision, I am grief-stricken that the district is losing such an exceptional presence. She has dedicated 33 years of her life and career to serving the LA Unified family, and for that, we are eternally grateful.”

King visiting classrooms soon after becoming superintendent.

LA Mayor Eric Garcetti called King a “close friend” in a statement. “Michelle King has devoted her entire professional life to Los Angeles’ young people — and her time as superintendent has brought phenomenal progress to students across our city. LAUSD’s record graduation rates are a testament to her remarkable commitment, and it has been my privilege to work closely with her on making community college tuition-free for every district graduate, expanding after-school programs, making more campuses available for recreation, and creating new opportunities for students to get the work experience they need to build a more prosperous future for their families and communities.”

Zimmer, who now works for Garcetti’s office, said in a statement that King’s “commitment to our students, their families, our teachers, our schools and our communities is without parallel. In every meeting, with every decision and through every action, Michelle has always thought first and foremost about the hopes and dreams of all students and each family.”

Gerun Riley, president of The Eli and Edythe Broad Foundation, said in an email, “Superintendent Michelle King has dedicated her career to the students of Los Angeles, and we are grateful for her commitment to teaching and learning. We send her our best wishes for a speedy and thorough recovery.”

Nadia Diaz Funn, executive director of the Alliance for a Better Community, in a statement thanked King “for her life-long service and dedication” and said she “demonstrated tremendous leadership. By establishing a district-wide initiative to achieve 100 percent graduation and improve the levels of college and career readiness across the district, she ignited a systemic movement — the results of which we are seeing year after year.”

Speak UP Executive Director Katie Braude thanked King for her years of dedication to LAUSD students and her historic term as the first African-American woman at the helm of the district. “We are grateful for King’s years of service on behalf of kids and, along with parents throughout LAUSD, we send our heartfelt wishes for a quick recovery,” she said in an email.

David Rattray of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce said in a statement, “Michelle’s 30-year career of public service is exemplary to all of us. Her remarkable work on behalf of the students of Los Angeles is an inspiration to us as we strive to continue her efforts for students and support the institution of LAUSD to which she dedicated her career.”

Ama Nyamekye, executive director of Educators for Excellence-Los Angeles, said in an email, “We’ve appreciated her eagerness to stay connected to on-the-ground educators and discuss their ideas for how to focus our schools on excellence and equity for students.”

E4E-Los Angeles member Lovelyn Marquez-Prueher, a teacher at Dodson Middle School, added, “I remember Dr. King engaging with teachers at a National Board Conference on a Saturday morning with my colleagues. I will never forget what it meant to know my superintendent wanted to listen and learn with teachers.”

Chris Steinhauser, superintendent of Long Beach Unified and president of the CORE Districts, of which LA Unified is a member, said in an email, “Leaders like Michelle, role models of experience, courage and grace, are treasured not only by their school communities but by colleagues throughout the state and nation. Michelle was a leader and colleague on the CORE board and helped steer our work on equity and access for all students. We send our strength and well wishes to her as she fights cancer.”

Schools will reopen Monday after winter break, and the school board holds its first meeting of 2018 on Tuesday to vote on renewals of independent charter schools and a petition for a new charter middle school in Los Feliz.

A district statement noted: “As we welcome the LA Unified family back to school on Monday, we remain united in our commitment to provide high-level instruction, improve attendance, support families, and prepare our students for success.”

*This article has been updated with statements from the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce, Educators for Excellence-Los Angeles, Steve Zimmer, and Long Beach Unified’s Chris Steinhauser.

Ari McIntyre and board member Scott Schmerelson at a Millikan talent showcase, which was nearly canceled over paperwork and fees, but Schmerelson stepped in to help.

Parents and teachers have become so frustrated with excessive paperwork, filing fees, and unexpected costs to use school rooms that holiday events have been canceled, fundraisers postponed, and special programs tabled throughout LA Unified.

The district cracked down this fall on long-overlooked procedures meant to protect its liability, after an internal report last June showed that events held on district property without proper insurance put the district at high risk for lawsuits. So schools are being required to make sure outside groups adhere to procedures they’ve rarely been held to before. And the district counts PTA’s and parent organizations as third parties.

So parent volunteers are quitting, and students are losing enhancement programs like robotics and music and cherished long-running festivals.

“All of it is managing safety, and we have to deal with the issues of urban America,” said school board President Mónica García, who has persistently heard complaints from parents about obstacles from the district that are keeping them from being involved in their children’s schools.

The outrage, which comes as LA Unified is putting renewed emphasis on parent involvement and grapples with a looming budget deficit, has reached school board members, who have stepped in to push the district to streamline the process for the nearly 1,200 school events proposed annually. And district officials now promise changes in coming months, including revamping web page for forms and waiving filing fees.

Monlux Elementary is losing some parent involvement.

“The actions of the district this fall are just killing any kind of parent involvement in the schools,” said Ari McIntyre, vice president of parent involvement for the Parent Teachers Student Association 31st District, who has been involved with her daughter Ariana’s schools for nine years. “I’ve never seen it this bad.”

SCHOOL EXAMPLES

Here are some schools affected:

• McIntyre, who runs an annual student showcase featuring dance, music, and photography at Millikan Middle Affiliated Charter in Sherman Oaks, got a bill for $78 in filing fees and $182.26 to use the space in her daughter’s school. After being called eight times by the district to pay up, her board member, Scott Schmerelson, stepped in to cover the fees.

• Monlux Elementary School’s annual fall carnival in North Hollywood was canceled due to the new fees and required paperwork, and some active parents dropped out of the PTA in frustration.

• The $56 fee for fingerprinting scared off an undocumented mom at an East Los Angeles magnet school, where she has volunteered sometimes as much as 20 hours a week over the past five years. Now that they’re insisting she fill out additional forms, she no longer goes to the parent center and is too frightened to even attend a PTA meeting.

• A pajama party that promotes reading at Carpenter Community Charter Elementary in Studio City was hit with a $78 in filing fee and $180.50 in extra costs, and parents were referred to new bulletins outlining required procedures, forms, and a fee menu — which they said were impossible to find on the district’s website.

• Unexpected fees and paperwork deadlines nearly killed an annual holiday show and postponed a performance of “Bye, Bye Birdie” at Portola Middle School in Tarzana until school board Vice President Nick Melvoin got involved by cutting through red tape.

• An assistant principal had to step in to save Walter Reed Middle School’s student-run talent show this fall when parent organizers faced so much paperwork and new fees that they nearly gave up putting on the event they’ve been doing for the past decade.

NEW CRACKDOWN ON OLD RULES

The rules that the district is cracking down on date back to 1992. An internal report by the district’s Office of Inspector General issued in June showed widespread duplication and confusion over the use of school sites and that procedures often weren’t followed.

The report noted that every year hundreds of requests come from third-party groups to hold events on school grounds. The report found that the district’s Risk Finance and Insurance Branch “does not have controls in place to ensure that all requests for events” are accounted for and adequately insured, and “there is a heightened risk that an accident could occur at an event without adequate insurance coverage, leaving the district liable for damages.” The report recommended a creating a one-stop shop on the district’s website to process all permits for special events.

Parent groups at Carpenter Community Charter are feeling the pressures of added paperwork and fees.

But the district started imposing the procedures before simplifying the process, and that has alienated parent groups and created a precipitous drop in school events and parent involvement, according to parent activists throughout the district.

“Parents just throw their hands up in disgust and don’t come back,” said Lisa Thomas, the Humanities Academy president for Walter Reed Middle School in Studio City. With three children, she has been involved for nine years at district schools and has never seen this level of red tape. “There are school trips that almost don’t happen, all sorts of deadlines, and an incredible new complexity.”

Thomas is one of the organizers of the annual school talent show, which had to be pushed back. “We are raising money to support (the district) that is failing, and we wouldn’t have to do that if there was enrichment or enough supplies. Our talent show is a unifying event. The students have a great time performing and the teachers volunteer their time, and the few thousand dollars we make go right back to the academy for field trips, software, and books.”

Some parents are fighting the fees, which help cover custodial services. “We are parents, we know how to clean up after ourselves, and every event I’ve worked on we left the place cleaner than we got it,” McIntyre said.

Ari McIntyre and her daughter Ariana.

When she was charged to fill out the paperwork and use the school hall for Millikan’s showcase, she told the district she wouldn’t pay for it. She said the district’s licensing and risk management offices called eight times and asked for her auto and homeowner’s insurance to get payment, which district officials denied. In the end, Schmerelson paid the fees.

“If parents are going to volunteer their time to raise money for things the district cannot afford, then why charge us for getting fingerprinted, or filing fees, or using school facilities?” said McIntyre, who is also a parent representative for Schmerelson. “Do we have to go the school board member every time? Every dime you take from us, you are taking directly from the kids, and frankly, parents are getting fed up. It’s just outrageous.”

Schmerelson held multiple meetings with parent groups and booster club leaders to address the confusion and insisted “that LAUSD policies on facilities use needed to be changed for certain parent-initiated school activities and, above all, that the process become more user friendly, consistent and transparent,” he said in an email, prompting the changes the district is now making.

Meanwhile, across the San Fernando Valley at Portola Middle School in Tarzana, Farnaz Simantob, a parent representative, said additional fees caused an outside organization to pull its popular robotics program at the school. The annual holiday show and a performance were saved when Melvoin stepped in to streamline the process, and a district official had to approve their sets for “Bye Bye Birdie,” even though they have been the same for years.

“This is a disservice to students” at a school with many low-income families, said Simantob, a parent volunteer for 12 years. She noted that paperwork has become excessive, including getting every parent volunteer to sign a waiver and fill out a form, even if they’re helping for a day.

“It’s not helping parent engagement, our volunteers have dropped by half, and it was already bad,” Simantob said. “There are layers of bureaucracy now that didn’t exist before.”

Forms can now involve different applications from various offices including food services, the Office of Environmental Health and Safety, facilities, and other departments.

“We are trying to alert schools and principals how to follow procedures that they did not properly follow before with some of their under-the-table events,” said Yekaterina Boyajian, the district’s director of Non-Academic Facilities and Planning for Leasing and Space Utilization. “We do not charge parents, we charge third-party vendors.”

Parent volunteers help out at Valley View’s garden.

RELIEF COMING

In February, the $78 application fee required for each event will be waived for PTA groups and approved parent-teacher organizations, but the fees to use the school facilities will remain, Boyajian said. She said the Beyond the Bell program and LA school police will help monitor that schools follow procedures and have proper permits and insurance.

“Otherwise, it exposes us to liability, and we are doing it all for the safety of the children,” Boyajian said.

The district plans to launch a new section of the Lausd.net website with a single place for every form and a checklist required for all school events that aren’t run by the principal.

Luis Buendia, controller of the Accounting and Disbursements division of the district, said the one-page site will help prevent delays in getting approvals.

“There has been a lot of back-and-forth with forms,” Buendia said. “We will be streamlining the process. We just want to make sure that safety is a top priority.”

Acting Superintendent Vivian Ekchian said parent involvement is a priority for the district. “We offer multiple opportunities for our parents to participate in their child’s education, and we are grateful for the time, ideas, and talents they bring to our schools. We are always looking for new and different ways to involve our families, and to provide a rich and dynamic learning experience for all,” she said in an email.

Board president García added, “Overall, we have to do all we can to encourage parent participation and strong healthy relationships with schools, and we have to make sure our kids are safe and do all we can to stay focused on learning.”

If you have experienced problems with school events, paperwork, or new fees at schools, tell us your story on the LA School Report Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/LASchoolReport/

At their last meeting of 2017, the LA Unified school board beefed up sexual harassment policies, reversed support for a state bill that charter schools considered a threat, discussed how to handle upcoming retiree costs of nearly $14 billion, and got a little good news on the budget.

BUDGET NEWS

More cash is coming from the state through LCFF funding, so the district’s chief financial officer is no longer calling for class size increases, as he did just four months ago. In his presentation to the board on Tuesday, Scott Price said the district will have an ending balance of $685 million this year, which is nearly $95 million higher than expected. The ending balance for 2018-19 is projected at $373.2 million. But by 2020-21, the district’s reserve money will be used up.

For 2017-18, the budget shows $125.5 million less in federal money because of lower Title I grants. The district did see an increase of $2.6 million for higher interest earnings.

Declining enrollment is hurting the district the most, and Price said, “Overall, we’re spending more than what we’re bringing in.”

“We can’t let short-term good news distract us” from declining enrollment, said board member Kelly Gonez. “We need to plan and take serious steps now.”

UNFUNDED $13.6 BILLION LIABILITY

A report from Glenn Daley of the Independent Analysis Unit detailed how the district must begin paying down the $13.6 billion in Other Post Employment Benefits, which is in addition to the retirement pensions. He suggested that if the district pays $100 million a year toward the debt, it could reduce that liability by $1.6 billion.

“But $100 million is not sufficient,” said board vice president Nick Melvoin, who noted that the pension debt is also growing.

Board member Richard Vladovic brought up changing some health benefits to offset the future liability, but no decisions were made.

SEXUAL HARASSMENT POLICIES

The board approved Melvoin’s resolution to incorporate best practices in the district’s sexual harassment policies. Melvoin noted that employees should know every claim will be “thoroughly investigated and addressed so that our schools are safe spaces — not only for kids, but for our teachers and employees as well.”

Within 120 days the district will provide updates, and by the first of the year, there will be a sexual harassment hotline available.

LOBBYING CHANGES

The board agreed to increase lobbying efforts for more state and federal money. Melvoin said he thought the district’s voice should be more coordinated.

The board also voted to withdraw support for a state bill that calls for eliminating counties and the state as charter school authorizers, leaving only local school districts with that authority. The 4-3 vote fell along familiar lines, with the four board members elected with charter school support voting for it, and George McKenna, Richard Vladovic, and Scott Schmerelson voting against the resolution, because they previously voted to direct the district’s lobbyists to support the bill.

NEW CALENDAR

Now parents can plan vacations because the school schedule is set for the next three years at district schools. (Independent charter schools can set their own schedules). After surveying nearly 170,000 families and nearly 21,000 employees, the district decided on a schedule very similar to the current one.

A few board members wanted schools to start after Labor Day, but that would push first semester finals until after winter break, and the school year wouldn’t end until late June.

For the next three years, school will start in mid-August and end the first week of June, with the first semester ending before winter break. Thanksgiving remains a weeklong holiday, and winter break remains three weeks.

Board members Gonez, Melvoin, Schmerelson, and Monica Garcia voted for the schedule, along with the student board member Benjamin Holtzman. McKenna and Vladovic voted no because they wanted a post-Labor Day start, and Ref Rodriguez voted no because he only thought one year’s schedule should be approved.

MARTIN LUTHER KING JR. DAY

McKenna and Melvoin proposed a day of services on Jan. 15, the birthday of the civil rights leader. The resolution was unanimously approved. Acting Superintendent Vivian Ekchian said, “I am encouraging our students, employees and families to volunteer and help others” on that day.

CONSTRUCTION

Without debate, the board unanimously approved $1.4 billion for construction for schools that will come from funds already approved by voters. However, the board is already talking about asking for more money from voters through bonds.

Put off until next month:

NEW RULES. The board postponed until January a proposal for new rules for the board meetings that give the president more authority.

TRANSPARENCY. The board also plans to discuss in January a resolution by Melvoin that would revamp the district’s website and make it easier to find information and offer more data to the public.

Wendy Greuel, left, acting Superintendent Vivian Ekchian, and Austin Beutner, task force co-chair, discuss attendance.

*UPDATED

It’s a daunting task to try to figure out how LA Unified can save money, but an advisory group came up with a surprising statistic:

If the district can get every student in the district to come to school at least one more day, then it will be ahead by $30 million because of the money schools get for attendance.

That’s one of the suggestions the LAUSD Advisory Task Force is giving the district in a series of deep-dives, and its latest findings will be presented at Tuesday’s school board meeting by acting Superintendent Vivian Ekchian. Formed earlier in the year by Superintendent Michelle King, who is on an extended medical leave, the task force is continuing its work of examining thorny problems such as test scores, low-performing schools, budget hurdles, and other challenges facing the district. Its proposals address attendance issues brought up two years ago by the Independent Financial Review Panel, which warned about shrinking enrollment in the district and its fiscal impacts.

• Read the task force’s recommendations here.

“We want to work with the district rather than get involved with the politics of the district,” said Austin Beutner, co-chair of the LAUSD Advisory Task Force, as the group previewed their findings before a board meeting Tuesday on charter schools. “We chose to start with attendance because attendance matters. If a child is not in school, we do not have that revenue, and that child is not learning.”

Chronically absent students are students who miss 15 or more days of school, which is 14.3 percent of LA Unified’s enrollment, or 80,000 students. If you add the students who are missing eight to 14 days of school a year, that figure increases to 17.9 percent of all students. Most of the higher absences are in low-income schools and in kindergarten and high school grades. The task force found that African-American students have the highest percentage of absences and that among all ethnicities except Asian, the rates of absences are higher among less affluent families.

Chronic absenteeism is a focus not only of the district but of the state and nation. This week it was added to the California School Dashboard. The federal Every Student Succeeds Act requires all states to report data on chronic absences, even if it isn’t used for accountability.

• Read more from The 74: 37 States Are Using Their ESSA Plans to Crack Down on Chronic Student Absences. So How Will They Do It?

“Sometimes the reasons for absenteeism is simply that a parent can’t get asthma medication for her child, and maybe the district can help with that,” Beutner said. Other causes for long absences include bullying, poor grades, homelessness, and illness.

The task force pulled best practices that have helped boost attendance in Baltimore, Philadelphia, Long Beach Unified, New York, Cleveland, and other areas, and outlined some pilot programs that will begin as soon as Jan. 1. Acting Superintendent Vivian Ekchian said she will roll out the pilot programs and see what is working in six months when the school year ends.

“I’m excited because the district has the support of the larger community, and obviously attendance is a complex issue,” Ekchian said. “We have a large foster population, and that is particularly fragile.”

The school board will hear details of the pilot roll-out at Tuesday’s school board meeting, the last of the calendar year. The task force itself will help raise $250,000 to help the district launch the pilot programs. The programs include:

•    Starting a district-wide public awareness campaign through a media campaign and social media to create a “drumbeat of information to help awareness” of how important attendance is and to engage community, business, and religious groups in the message.
•    Targeting 20,000 chronically absent students by hiring In Class Today, a firm that tracks attendance data and mails updates to families.
•    Canvassing neighborhoods and businesses where there are high concentrations of chronic absences and offering materials that show the benefits of attending school.
•    Contacting families through phone banks and texts to see if families need assistance.
•    Offering incentives with cash bonuses for schools showing the most progress, which can be used at the discretion of the principal.

A future long-term and more expensive proposal from the task force involves one-on-one counseling and mentors to work with students and families. Predominantly minority, low-income, and foster children are the among the most chronically absent, which significantly decreases their rates of high school graduation.

“This is a win-win because it will help the students directly, and it will get the involvement of the community,” said task force member Wendy Greuel, who is a consultant for CSUN and a former city controller and City Council member.

Task force member Renata Simril, president and CEO of the LA84 Foundation, added, “This does have a serious impact to the budget, when you consider that getting students back one day can add $30 million.”

*This article has been updated to correct that in order to save $30 million a year, all students would have to attend school one additional day, and that the task force findings will be presented Tuesday by the acting superintendent. 

Firefighters battle the Creek Fire in Sylmar. (Photo by Luis Sinco / Los Angeles Times via Getty Images)

*UPDATED — Schools to reopen Monday, plus lunch and support sites available on Friday and Saturday.

More than one-third of LA Unified schools closed this week because of raging fires in the San Fernando Valley and the Sepulveda Pass. 

No students in all those seats could mean a loss of tens of millions of dollars in state funding, but LA Unified is requesting a waiver that’s usually granted during natural disasters.

A total of 384 schools closed on Thursday and Friday because of poor air quality and traffic issues when freeways were shut down. On Tuesday when the fires began, about a dozen schools in the Valley were relocated to nearby high schools for the day. Starting Wednesday, about 50 schools closed, and that number grew as the fires blazed out of control.

All of the schools in the Valley, in both Local District Northeast and Local District Northwest, were closed, as well as 16 schools in Local District West and 50 independent charter schools. They are all listed on the district’s website, along with a map of the schools and the fire area.

On Friday afternoon, the district announced that all schools will reopen Monday. The decision to reopen schools was based on improved air quality and the lifting of mandatory evacuations that affecting school communities, according to a district email.

“L.A. Unified crews will be working through the weekend to install new air filters at closed schools and ensure that facilities are ready for teaching and learning to resume,” it stated. “Some outdoor activities may be limited until air quality returns to normal levels.” Updated information and additional resources are available at lausd.net.

To make up for the lost dollars around attendance, “The state of California supports districts impacted by a natural disaster by allowing them to apply for a waiver of the 180-day instructional requirement,” said Barbara Jones, of the district’s communications department. The waiver will allow students to not have to make up the school days, because 180 days are required by state law.

The district will also apply to receive funding related to the loss of attendance, which will use attendance for a comparable period in the past. “This is particularly important because it applies not only to schools that are actually closed, but also to nearby campuses that show a drop in attendance of more than 2 percent,” Jones said in an email.

The district applies to the Los Angeles County Office of Education for the 180-day waiver and the attendance funding. Once the county approves, the request goes to the California Department of Education and then to the State Board of Education.

Schools closed with red dots, fire areas circled in red. (LAUSD)

“Acting Superintendent Vivian Ekchian has already spoken to state Superintendent Tom Torlakson, who has been very supportive of the district’s wildfire response,” Jones said.

The superintendent and board president Mónica García sent a letter explaining the school closures to Torlakson, and he responded with an email saying “Los Angeles has our full support.”

In December 2015, when the district closed for a day because of an email threat, Torlakson said the state would compensate the district for the lost money the schools would suffer for lack of attendance. At that time, losing one day of attendance districtwide would have cost $29 million.

The National Weather Service said the high winds will taper off by Saturday; schools are expected to reopen Monday.

Although all LA Unified schools were closed in the San Fernando Valley, many private schools and the Burbank Unified and Glendale Unified school districts kept their schools open on Thursday and Friday, but all of them restricted outdoor activities.

Staff did not report to LA Unified’s closed schools, and they will be paid for the days the schools are closed, Jones said.

The district is also documenting costs related to the fires such as extra supplies, staff time, and overtime that will be submitted to the state and federal governments if additional relief is provided, Jones said.

There have been no reports of injuries or damage at any of the school sites.

On Friday and Saturday, LA Unified will be serving meals at three sites to help families affected by school closures caused by the wildfires. The centers will be open from 11:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Dec. 8 and 9 at Reseda High School and Byrd and Palms Middle schools.

City recreation centers are also open extended hours Friday, with additional activities to support students from closed schools.

L.A. Unified setting up special sites to serve meals at schools near areas affected by wildfires. Details: https://t.co/KxJhu67vVl

— L.A. Unified (@LASchools) December 8, 2017

For @LASchools students out of school today: check which @LAPublicLibrary locations are open or visit one of 26 rec centers in SFV that is open with indoor activities for kids and their families https://t.co/0iCoxj0d12

— Nick Melvoin (@nickmelvoin) December 7, 2017

ALERT: School Closure for Thursday and Friday (Dec 7th-8th)
Due to the #CreekFire, all @LASchools in #BD6 Northeast San Fernando Valley will be CLOSED for the remainder of the week.

Visit https://t.co/rlUyeCnFdR for a complete list. @UTLAnow @LASPD pic.twitter.com/EDoa4LzBYf

— Kelly Gonez, LAUSD (@Kelly4LASchools) December 6, 2017

Parent Yvette Fields talks about her twins attending Executive Prep.

LA Unified’s charter division agreed this week to be more consistent when making additional requirements of independent charter schools during their renewal process.

School board vice president Nick Melvoin requested the change at Tuesday’s board meeting because he said the added requirements, known as benchmarks, were being applied unfairly to some schools that were showing improvements while others that had lower test scores had none.

Benchmarks are extra requirements with deadlines that are added to charter petitions, sometimes written into the petitions by district staff and sometimes added by board members. If the schools don’t provide a plan to meet those added requirements, they could lose their charters. Benchmarks are common when certain subgroups, such as for specific minorities or students requiring special education, have performed poorly on state tests. Most often, the benchmarks are suggested by board members representing the district of the school. Board member Richard Vladovic always asks for a benchmark and a plan from the school if its English language learner reclassification rate is lower than the district’s average.

“I see a lot of close calls,” Melvoin said. “And I think there needs to be some consistency. Schools need to be aware of this, and there should be an accountability system.”

Melvoin suggested that a uniform and equitable system of benchmarks be applied to traditional district schools as well as charters.

No other board members objected to the changes, and charter division chief José Cole-Gutiérrez agreed to make them. He said, “We try to be as consistent as possible. All benchmarks are for the board’s deliberations, and the board can add their own. We want the schools to make sure that the staff is paying attention, and let the board and public know that we are keeping a close watch.”

After expressing his concerns, Melvoin asked that the benchmarks that district staff had written into the charter petition for Extera Public School 2 be made less burdensome. He asked that a written benchmark that was to apply to “all students” be amended to “English learners.”

On Tuesday, the board approved the renewal of nine charter schools and approved two new charter schools for nearly 1,000 students, while denying a petition for one new school.

One existing charter school was unanimously rejected by the board.

Executive Prep’s principal Monique Woodley asks the board to renew her school.

After some passionate discussion from administrators, students, and a parent from Executive Preparatory Academy of Finance, the board rejected the renewal of the school in Gardena, which serves 203 students and was started in 2013. Charter division staff cited concerns that the school, which was approved for 400 students, did not have the financial capability to continue operations and that students’ scores on state standardized tests continued to be low. This year, 24 percent of tested students were proficient in English language arts, and 5 percent were proficient in math. The district averages this year were 40 percent in English and 30 percent in math.

Executive Prep’s principal, Monique Woodley, said she blamed the charter division for the denial, because it had previously suggested that the school take away support classes the school had been offering their students so they could get more familiar with the Common Core curriculum. After they did so, test scores fell. Omar McGee, the school’s founder and chief executive officer, expressed frustration over the denial even after school leaders had carried out charter division suggestions and removed a founding member from the school’s board of directors and cut all business relationships the school had with Celerity Global, a charter organization under federal investigation.

“I need my twins, a son and daughter, to go somewhere where they need love on them, and make sure they continue to build upon my children, and this is it,” said parent Yvette Fields.

The school board also:

• renewed charter petitions for five years for Citizens of the World 3, Crenshaw Arts Technology Charter High, Extera Public School 2, High Tech LA, Metro Charter, PREPA TEC, Stella Middle Charter Academy, Valor Academy High, and ICEF View Park Preparatory High, as well as  revisions to the charter for Community Preparatory Academy
• approved a new charter school, Rise Kohyang Elementary, to serve up to 569 students in District 2
• approved a new charter, Valley International Preparatory High, to serve up to 400 students for District 3 or 6
• denied a new charter for Acumen Academy to serve up to 440 students in District 5
• noted the withdrawal of a proposal for a new school by iLEAD Encino Charter for 885 students in District 3.

At the next special school board meeting for charter schools, the board will consider renewals for Goethe International Charter, Ocean Charter, Pathways Community School, TEACH Preparatory, Vaughn Next Century Learning Center, and a new school for 225 students called Los Feliz Charter Middle School for the Arts.

Odalis Torres, left, and Carolina Sagrero are fans of the new vegan menu at Roosevelt High.

Carolina Sagrero, 16, is neither vegan nor vegetarian, but she sure likes the new vegan chili that’s joined the Roosevelt High School lunch menu this year.

“Everyone loves the vegan chili,” said Sagrero, a junior on the volleyball team. “It got me thinking about my diet, and so I’ve tried more of the vegan options. There’s a stereotype that it has less flavor, but it’s not true.”

She’s now eating less meat and her mother is shopping for more healthy options for the family at grocery stores in Boyle Heights.

Adding a vegan menu option has proven so successful at LA Unified that the Food Services Division plans to suggest expanding the program to every school in the district by the end of this school year. It would be the first school district in the nation to have a vegan option in every school.

The pilot program started in September by introducing a vegan menu at one school in each of the seven districts. Without too much promotion, some vegan menu items have run out quickly because they are so popular, and students have asked for more options, even if they are not vegans.

The students’ enthusiastic reception has surprised everyone from the head of the food services division through those dishing up the food.

“It is exciting to see that students are trying something different for the first time,” said the district’s Senior Nutrition Specialist Ivy Marx, who has worked as a school dietician for more than 25 years.

Students are choosing a vegan lunch option on average 13 percent of the time, and on some days more than half the students are choosing the vegan option, some preliminary district data show.

In some areas of the district, the students like the tamale, even though it’s not like the ones they’re used to getting at home, Marx said. In other parts of the district, the vegan teriyaki burger is a favorite.  

Food Services Director Joseph Vaughn said he is committed to supporting the vegan pilot program and to its expansion — without increasing the food services budget, which he has been mandated to rein in. He now plans to “begin a strategic rollout of the vegan option” starting in January to 35 additional elementary, middle and high schools. Food Services will collaboratively work with local district to identify the 35 schools.

A total of 31,204 vegan entrees were dished out during 52 days of the pilot program so far, rotating five menu items. The district plans to increase the menu items to 10. Vaughn noted, “The data clearly shows that a sufficient number of students desire vegan options in addition to the regular lunch menu.”

The vegan pilot idea was championed by former school board president and vegetarian Steve Zimmer, who was voted out of office earlier this year, and sparked by sophomore Lila Copeland, who as an eighth-grader founded the nonprofit Earth Peace Foundation to push for vegan school lunches.

“We are thrilled with the reaction to the pilot and that most of the kids trying the new lunches were not vegan or vegetarian,” Lila said after a recent meeting with the Food Services division. “We think more kids will now choose a healthy lunch option.”

That’s what happened to 17-year-old Odalis Torres at Roosevelt High who is no longer eating meat after learning about healthy food choices in a health class at school. She said she got two football players to try some of the vegan options at lunch.

“They were hesitant at first, but I got them to try it, and they liked it,” Torres said.

Zitlali Sanchez, a junior, has been encouraging her friends to try some of the new vegan options at lunch.

“If they try it at school, then they may be eventually changing their habits at home too, and maybe even getting the whole family to eat more healthy,” the 16-year-old said.

Roosevelt’s café manager, Kiki Tarrant, hasn’t seen such excitement about a menu change in her seven years in the position. In the pilot program’s first week at her school, she ran out of the 500 servings of vegan dishes.

“I’ve needed two times what we had,” Tarrant said. “They are asking for vegan now. Students are paying more attention to what they eat.”

Amanda Copeland, Lila’s mother, said, “It is wonderful that students are understanding the awareness and literacy toward healthy eating, the environment, and agriculture, but there may be some push-back from meat and milk lobbies against this. The next step is to do this at a state level.”

Lila has met with state and national leaders involved with student lunches who say they are making progress in getting California Assembly leaders interested in legislation that would introduce a vegan option statewide.

“By the time Lila graduates from high school, it may be in all of LA Unified, and by the time she graduates college, maybe it will be statewide,” Copeland said. “Eventually, we will see that the students are getting healthier because these options are available to them.”