LAUSD candidates hit by late controversies appear headed to runoffs in tight contests
Two Los Angeles school board contenders whose campaigns were jolted by personal and professional turbulence late in the race appear headed to November runoffs but will face stiff challenges from opponents who held slight leads Wednesday afternoon.
Four of the seven Board of Education seats were on the ballot in the election that ended Tuesday, with 18 candidates seeking a four-year term leading the nation’s second-largest school system.
Community activist Kahllid Al-Alim, who apologized last month for reposting or “liking” antisemitic and pornographic social media content, was closely behind top vote-getter Sherlett Hendy Newbill, a senior advisor to District 1 school board member George McKenna, who is retiring. The district includes much of South L.A. and southwest L.A.
In District 5, Graciela Ortiz — who has declined to discuss why she was under school district investigation and temporarily removed from her job as a counseling administrator — was less than one percentage point behind Karla Griego, who is a school coordinator for student and parent services. District 5 stretches north to south along the eastern portion of the sprawling school system.
In District 3, encompassing the west San Fernando Valley and adjacent areas, two-term incumbent Scott Schmerelson held a comfortable lead, but appears headed to a runoff against Dan Chang, a middle school teacher and former charter school executive.
And in District 7, which runs from South L.A. to the Harbor area, incumbent Tanya Ortiz Franklin is poised to win a second term against challenger Lydia Gutierrez, who is a teacher. This contest will be settled after the votes are tallied, without a runoff, because only two candidates were on the ballot.
In the other races, if no candidate receives a majority of votes, the top two finishers advance to the November runoff.
Still being counted are vote-by-mail ballots delivered to voting centers Tuesday and mailed-in ballots with a postmark of Tuesday or earlier. Provisional ballots — whose validity must be verified — also will add to the total.
Also on Tuesday, the results of a race for Congress had an effect on the Board of Education. District 4 board member Nick Melvoin lost his bid to succeed Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Burbank) and will remain on the school board.
Big-picture issues for L.A. Unified include declining enrollment, potential school closures, the ending of pandemic-relief aid, the future of school police and student drug use. But there also have been troubles swirling around two leading candidates.
District 1
The teachers union, United Teachers Los Angeles, dropped its endorsement of Al-Alim — after propelling him to prominence — following revelations about his social media activity. But the union did not decide to do so until Monday, the night before voting ended. By then, the union had spent more than $690,000 in an independent campaign on behalf of Al-Alim, a Los Angeles city custodial worker.
That effort, Al-Alim’s apology, his own continued campaigning and residual goodwill from volunteer roles in the community — appeared to have sustained his campaign enough to get to the next round.
UTLA acts after revelations that school board candidate Kahllid Al-Alim engaged in social media activity including reposting or liking antisemitic and pornographic content.
Late afternoon results Wednesday showed longtime Dorsey High teacher and coach Hendy Newbill with 23.30% of the votes followed by Al-Alim with 21.59%. .
Among all the candidates, Hendy Newbill appears likely to be the only one who was able to prevail without heavy spending from a political action committee on her behalf.
A campaign volunteer said Hendy Newbill’s longstanding ties and commitment to the South L.A. community as an educator made a powerful difference.
“What I saw with the Sherlett canvass I have not seen in any other race: People knew Sherlett,” said Tracy Abbott Cook. “I watched the letter carrier, loaded with a mail satchel, walk by and she yelled out, ‘Is that Sherlett from Dorsey?’”
In third place was veteran school district administrator DeWayne Davis, with 17.60% of the vote, followed by Didi Watts, an educator whose experience spans both traditional and charter schools, with 16.01. Davis and Watts were within range of reaching the top two spots, but the remaining uncounted votes would have to break strongly their way.
Watts still could benefit from PAC spending that intensified on her behalf in recent days, reaching nearly $530,000 and targeting last-minute voters.
District 3
Schmerelson, a retired principal and Spanish teacher, was opposed by four challengers.
In the latest tallies, Schmerelson collected about 42% of the vote, not enough to avoid a runoff against Chang, who was far ahead of other challengers with about 30% of the vote.
Schmerelson benefited from an independent campaign of about $650,000 in spending by the teachers union. A competing PAC spent $870,080 on behalf of Chang. This PAC was bankrolled mostly by retired businessman Bill Bloomfield, the most active individual donor in recent L.A. school board elections.
District 5
Four candidates were seeking to replace incumbent Jackie Goldberg, the school board president, who also is retiring in December at the end of her term.
Ortiz contended with the disclosure that school district officials had removed her from her school district job as a counseling administrator in early January pending the outcome of an internal investigation.
The investigation was launched after a civil lawsuit was filed alleging candidate Graciela Ortiz and a political ally are liable for the actions of a campaign worker, who pleaded no contest to sexual misconduct with an underage volunteer.
It’s not clear why the district launched an investigation, but it began shortly after a civil lawsuit was filed alleging that Ortiz and a political ally were liable for the actions of a campaign worker who pleaded no contest to sexual misconduct with an underage volunteer.
Ortiz returned to her job last week but declined to discuss that matter or the lawsuit, blaming the media for writing about the issues.
In early returns, Ortiz started off well in front, but her race grew tighter as more votes were counted, and she slipped into second place Wednesday afternoon.
Veteran teacher Karla Griego moved to the first spot with 32.51% of the vote to Ortiz’s 32.19% — with 122 votes separating them.
Ortiz, who also is a City Council member in Huntington Park, benefited from a campaign by Local 99 of Service Employees International Union, which spent $810,861 on her behalf and stood by its endorsement of her. In an email Wednesday, the union said it was “clear that our work is making a difference” on behalf of Ortiz and Franklin.
In District 5 it was union versus union, with the teachers union spending more than $858,000 urging voters to elect Griego.
In third place was longtime high school teacher Fidencio Gallardo, with about 24% of the vote. Gallardo is currently the mayor of Bell and also a senior advisor to Goldberg.
Gallardo won the support of some rank-and-file teachers and pro-union parents who splintered off from the UTLA-endorsed candidate — and his campaign raised more than $100,000 — but it was difficult to counteract the big-money union spending for Ortiz and Griego.
Local 99 also launched a negative campaign against Gallardo, spending $48,521.
Outside groups continue to flood Los Angeles Board of Education races with spending to win influence over the direction of the nation’s second-largest school system.
District 7
Incumbent Tanya Franklin, a former teacher and school program administrator, led longtime Long Beach Unified teacher Lydia Gutierrez by about 55% to 45%.
Gutierrez is doing surprisingly well considering her limited fundraising — $3,484 — to reach voters.
In contrast, Franklin’s campaign raised $81,202, and she also benefited from an independent campaign paid for mostly by Bloomfield, who spent more than $731,000 in a positive campaign for Franklin as well as more than $350,000 in a negative campaign against Gutierrez.
“Our narrow win margin reminds me that many voters and families are not yet satisfied with L.A. Unified,” Franklin said Wednesday. “This will fuel my next four years, listening to concerns, problem-solving together and, above all, ensuring that our public education system meets the unique needs of each student, family, employee and community.”
New leadership
New members could flip the board’s ideology — from one that wants to rein in charter schools to one that supports these independent and mostly nonunion public schools. Charters compete with district-operated schools for students, and competition is intense as overall enrollment continues to decline. A narrow board majority recently put new limits on when and where charter schools would be allowed to operate on district-owned campuses.
Addressing declining enrollment — and the funding and staff reductions that come with it — is a key issue facing the district. Candidates, however, have largely declined to discuss the real — but unpopular — likelihood of having to close campuses.
School policing is a hotly debated issue on which candidates have differed. Some candidates call for disbanding the school police; others see them as essential for safety.
The new board also will evaluate the progress of L.A. schools Supt. Alberto Carvalho, the one official they supervise. Carvalho, who is about halfway through a four-year contract, has pledged a full academic recovery from pandemic-era learning setbacks by the end of the current school year. If he is successful, there will still be more to accomplish in raising overall learning, especially for Black and low-income Latino students.
Among the initiatives launched by Carvalho was an order to stock schools with the overdose drug Narcan, but drug use and availability among students remains a concern for parents.
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