Fielding Parent Questions Solo at BD5 Forum, Goldberg Prioritizes Special Ed, But Cautions Parents Not To Expect Achievement Gap to Close in Coming Years
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Speak UP parent leader Laura Gutierrez shakes hands with Board Member Jackie Goldberg
More than 100 parents packed the L.A. Unified Board District 5 candidate forum in Cudahy Tuesday night to hear how the two candidates running in the March 3 primary would represent schools in Southeast Los Angeles and parts of the Northeast, including Silver Lake, Echo Park and Los Feliz.
Only one candidate, the incumbent Board member Jackie Goldberg, showed up to answer questions from parents, and she did not have encouraging words about the prospects of raising the achievement of the vast majority of students who live in the Southeast part of her district, more than 90 percent of whom are Latino, and 85 percent of whom live in poverty.
“We cannot make promises that we cannot keep,” she said when asked whether LAUSD will close the achievement gap for low-income and Latino students by 2023, the goal of a resolution passed by the board in 2018, before she joined the board.
“We just don’t have the resources to do it,” she added. “When you don’t have a 15-20 student class size in the elementary schools, you’re not closing the gap. We have not been closing the achievement gap in the last two years, and we just don’t have resources to close the gap in 2023.”
Goldberg answered questions from a panel that included Speak UP parent leader Laura Gutierrez, on a variety of topics such as special education training for teachers, giving undocumented parents the right to vote in school board elections and the Student Equity Needs Index used to direct more funding to high-needs schools.
Goldberg’s opponent, Dr. Christina Martinez Duran, did not attend the community forum hosted by Speak UP, Families in Schools, Parent Revolution, Innovate Public Schools - Los Angeles, Alliance for a Better Community, SELA Collaborative, United Way of Greater Los Angeles and Los Angeles Coalition for Excellent Public Schools.
About 100 parents attended the forum co-hosted by Speak UP
Duran’s representative, Isaac Escobar, read a statement on her behalf, excusing Duran for not attending the forum explaining that she was available for the forum’s original date, Feb. 12. The date was changed to accommodate Goldberg’s schedule, and both candidates had originally agreed to the new date.
“My promise was to be here with you on Feb. 12, and as promised, I was here with my campaign’s staff to receive those community members that had not been notified of the new date,” said Duran’s statement. “As a Latina educator and administrator, I want to serve our 90 percent Latino student population here in District 5, as I support their education, parents and the community.”
Cudahy Mayor Elizabeth Alcantar told the audience she hoped the community is aware of the importance of the school board election and that they get out the vote even if they can’t vote themselves because of their immigration status. “That’s a reality in our community, but I hope you can encourage someone else who can vote not only for the presidential election but also for your local school board election,” she said. “I encourage you to have a plan, to figure out how you’re going to vote not just now but in the future.”
The first round of questions for Goldberg was asked by a panel of six parents and one high school student, a member of United Way-LA’s Youth Civic Leaders Program. Each represented one of the community-based organizations that coordinated the forum.
Speak UP’s Gutierrez, a Southeast parent of a student with special needs asked how Goldberg would ensure that all teachers in LAUSD schools can be trained to better serve students with special needs, particularly those with moderate to severe disabilities.
Goldberg noted that special education is particularly important to her because her son and one of her grandchildren have special needs. She said she will address the special education teacher shortage, making more professional development available to special ed teachers and ensure students with moderate to severe needs have the “materials” they need for their inclusion in general education settings.
“We have to make sure the inclusion program for special education is actually fully functioning,” she said. “It’s my firm belief that is a great idea, but it’s an idea we haven’t thoroughly implemented and that we have a lot more to do.”
Roughly mirroring the district as a whole, approximately 11 percent of BD5’s students require special education services. “We need to design ongoing professional development,” Goldberg said. “We have a lot of work to do, especially for teachers first using inclusion with special ed students in their classroom.”
Veronica Avina, a parent with the Parent Power Network, asked the board member how she plans to use student growth data at a strategic level now that the district has publicly released this data showing how much progress students make each year. Goldberg originally opposed the release of the data but acquiesced after a pressure campaign from Speak UP and other parents and organizations.
Goldberg said she is “suspicious” about that piece of data, as she thinks it can be misleading. “We have to be sensitive, use common sense when we look at that,” she said. “I think we have to be careful that growth doesn’t mislead us.”
When asked about plans to improve the lowest-performing schools in BD5, Goldberg mentioned parent involvement as key to student success and highlighted how parents in the Southeast, mostly a low-income immigrant community, are “way more involved” in school sites than parents in the more affluent northeast area of District 5.
However, according to LAUSD’s data, there are seven schools in BD5 that were recently identified in the bottom 5 percent of schools in the state, and all seven are in the district’s Southeast section. And of the 39 schools rated in the lowest categories on the California School Dashboard, 64 percent are in the Southeast.
Gutierrez also asked Goldberg about the changes she’s proposing to the Student Equity Need Index 2.0 (SENI), which was approved in 2018 and is intended to channel more money to help the highest-needs schools in L.A.
Parent panelist Mary Lee with Speak UP’s Lisa Mosko and parent leader Laura Gutierrez
Goldberg explained she wants to change it because some schools that are doing a good job in reclassifying more English Learners would be at risk of losing money, so she is requesting a “slight change” to SENI to allow for duplicated counting. Under the current formula, students who may be living in foster homes, but are also newcomers to the country and are low-income and English learners are counted one time. Under Goldberg’s modification, she explained, “We would count the student four times under that SENI allocation. I think that is the fairest way.”
Goldberg, who chairs the Board’s budget committee, called the Committee of the Whole, said she also wants to allocate more money from the general budget to SENI.
Mary Lee, an African American parent representing Families in Schools, said that African American and Latino students would greatly benefit from SENI, so she asked Goldberg how she would ensure accountability of those funds.
“Schools have a lot to say about how the money is spent,” Goldberg said, pointing out that she has asked administrators in the local district to provide more training for principals on the local budgeting process and to include parents. “One of the things I don’t see happening is team-building, which means all people get information at the same time. We’re all in this together. We all should decide how to use it in the most effective way.”
As many immigrant families live in the Southeast area, parent Jeanette Godina asked the board member if she would support allowing undocumented parents to vote in school board elections. Goldberg said that the immigrant rights organization CHIRLA is her primary advisor on that topic and that she is not supporting it until she knows it is completely safe for immigrant families.
Goldberg did not mention any particular achievements during her seven-months tenure but said seven months was not enough time, and that’s the reason she is running for reelection.
Brenda Bautista, a parent from Maywood who attended the forum, said she expected to get more out of the Q&A section. She said at the end of the forum she was disappointed that candidate Duran did not show up and that Goldberg wouldn’t expand more on her responses.
“I wanted to hear from Jackie about what exactly she did in the last seven months as a board member to improve our schools and why she wants to continue serving this particular community,” Bautista said. “I really hope that whoever wins the election really focuses on putting our students first, especially our special ed students because they are the ones who struggle the most in this district.”
