Parents Aren't Being Heard

Los Angeles CA

15 February, 2022

10:01 PM

Description

"A few wealthy individuals and corporations have bought up our private sector and now they're buying up the government. Campaign finance reform is the most important issue facing us today because it impacts all the others." - Sen. Bernie Sanders When the California Charter School Association (CCSA) hatched a plan to "create another pathway for access to facilities" they called LAUSD Board Member Nick Melvoin and his Chief Advisor, Allison Holdorff Polhill, in for a confidential meeting. Away from the prying eyes of the public, they agreed to "work on developing an accountability framework for rating schools" that would eventually include the "draconian consequence" of shutting down schools so that they could be given to the operators of charter schools. In this same meeting, Melvoin, Polhill, and the CCSA worked out a way to move forward on a plan to change the dispute resolution process for PROP-39 that would allow the "charter community [to] describe and prepare what [the] process should look like". Working "behind the scenes", they would "lay out the desired dispute resolution process." Also discussed was a way to provide Melvoin with "political cover". While the political organization representing 20% of students in Los Angeles gets direct access to school board members, the actual stakeholders of the LAUSD are left to beg for scraps. Parents at Pio Pico recently learned without any warning that their neighborhood school is being closed at the end of this school year. Instead of having input into the process, they were given a hard pitch to just choose another school. At Orville Wright, parents were informed that their school community is being evicted so that a charter school can take their building. Again, the Wright families had no notice, never mind input, as the plan was crafted. The only guaranteed access that parents have to the elected officials who are supposed to represent them is the public comment period during board meetings. However, while this comment period is mandated by state law, there are no requirements that the board members actually listen. As an example, at a recent meeting, Board President Kelly Gonez and Melvoin were caught on video leaving their seats as soon as the public comment period started as if it were intermission during a play. Several minutes after returning to her seat, Gonez began a conversation with Interim Superintendent Megan Reilly that lasted almost 12 minutes, all the while oblivious to the community members taking their turn to speak. The board's latest tactic is to remove controversial items from the agenda so that public input is never heard. The district bureaucrats then implement the policy without the board having ever voted to approve it. A recent example of this is a vote that would have sought federal exemptions that were supposedly needed to implement Betsy DeVos' School Centered Funding (SCF) scheme. When public opposition made a vote on the policy painful, the item was suddenly pulled from consideration. However, this did not stop the district from listing the policy as a done deal for weeks after the vote was canceled. Is this what the CCSA and Melvoin meant by providing "political cover"? Melvoin does not shy away from bragging about his support for the charter school industry that finances his political campaigns. Last year he told the Pacific Palisades Community Council that he is excited when he hears that families are going to Palisades High School. Pali High is not an LAUSD school but an independent charter school with its own governing board. Melvoin even says that he put the campus, which sits about a mile from the Pacific Ocean, first on the list to receive LAUSD bond money for an air conditioning project. He did not say which public school students he pushed aside so that this publicly funded private school in a privileged area could receive these funds. Students at LAUSD schools do not get this same level of support from their representative on the school board. Instead of being granted direct access, they had to take to the streets to protest Melvoin's ill-fated plan to shut down the special education program at Fairfax High School in order to open Melvoin's vanity project in their building. At Orville Wright STEAM Magnet, students who are socioeconomically challenged are being shoved aside by Melvoin so that a charter school that serves a more privileged student demographic can use the space. The board member actually mocked me after I had made a public comment pointing out a lack of charter school oversight over Community Preparatory Academy (CPA) in the five years before it recommended that its charter not be renewed. It was later revealed that the Executive Director at this school had embezzled $3.1 million in education funds during the time that it was being overseen by the LAUSD. Charter schools have gained access to LAUSD school board members by spending $18.6 million to purchase elections for candidates like Gonez and Melvoin who are favorable to their industry. This money has allowed the district to evict public school students with special education needs from spaces used to provide them with the services they require. It has paved the way for these schools to ignore $13,745,310 in past due debts without consequence and for corruption to go unpunished. Ignored by the elected representatives who are supposed to represent them, the public has only one way left to have its voice heard; election day is June 7, 2022, and both Gonez and Melvoin are asking to be re-elected. Carl Petersen is a parent advocate for students with special education needs and public education. He is an elected member of the Northridge East Neighborhood Council and serves as the Education Chair. As a Green Party candidate in LAUSD's District 2 School Board race, he was endorsed by Network for Public Education (NPE) Action. Dr. Diane Ravitch has called him "a valiant fighter for public schools in Los Angeles." For links to his blogs, please visit www.ChangeTheLAUSD.com. Opinions are his own.