Voters in Los Angeles Unified College Board District 5 have a selection on the Nov. 5 poll between Karla Griego, a particular training trainer, and Graciela Ortiz, a district administrator.
Veteran board member Jackie Goldberg is retiring, leaving an open seat on this sprawling, C-shaped district, which incorporates the southeast cities of Huntington Park, Maywood and South Gate, swerves by means of Central and South L.A., throughout East Hollywood and into Glassell Park, Eagle Rock and different components of northeast L.A. Her substitute ought to have the abilities and expertise to deal with studying loss, continual absenteeism and psychological well being points college students have suffered for the reason that pandemic, and to bridge communities with disparate wants.
The most effective candidate to characterize them on the varsity board is Griego. She has devoted her profession to serving among the district’s highest-need college students and brings practically 20 years of expertise as a trainer, guardian and union activist who has battled district forms to get college students the assets they deserve.
Griego is neighborhood faculty coordinator at McAlister Excessive College for college kids below 18 which are pregnant or mother and father. She has taught at Sonia Sotomayor Arts and Sciences Magnet, Buchanan Avenue Elementary and Benjamin Franklin Excessive in Highland Park.
Her priorities embody growing district accountability and transparency over budgeting, contracts and constitution colleges, increasing the companies colleges present to youngsters and their households and persevering with to put money into the Black Student Achievement Plan the varsity board adopted three years in the past to handle the tutorial inequities Black college students face.
Griego is endorsed by the highly effective United Lecturers Los Angeles union, and although a lot of her views align with the union’s, primarily based on her observe file we anticipate her to place her power into adjustments that finest serve college students, not simply labor pursuits.
Whereas instructing at Buchanan Avenue College, for instance, Griego helped manage academics, employees and oldsters to push faculty and district officers till they made enhancements equivalent to including playground tools, working water fountains, inexperienced area and eradicating outdated bungalows.
Griego completed first out of 4 candidates within the major election, with 36.7% of the vote. It’s vital that she now has the help of former opponent, former Bell Mayor Fidencio Gallardo, who completed third, and of Goldberg. Like Goldberg, Griego is a fighter who will ask robust questions, demand accountability and rise up for the wants of scholars and their households.
Griego understands that bettering attendance, commencement charges and educational achievement requires holistic options, equivalent to ensuring college students and their households have entry to meals, little one care and healthcare. That’s why she mentioned she would push for colleges to supply extra companies, together with before- and after-school packages, psychological well being help and health courses. These convictions are primarily based on seeing continual absenteeism go down in a single 12 months at certainly one of her colleges after it began providing companies to the neighborhood equivalent to yoga, and because the guardian of a daughter in highschool in District 5.
The opposite candidate, Ortiz, is an LAUSD administrator in pupil companies and attendance and former member of the Huntington Park Metropolis Council. Ortiz is backed by constitution faculty advocates and Service Workers Worldwide Union, Native 99, which represents categorized faculty employees together with tutorial aides, custodians, bus drivers and cafeteria employees.
Ortiz argues that her expertise as an elected official and district administrator overseeing counselors that work on continual absenteeism would permit her to get to work straight away on her priorities, which embody growing funding and addressing inequities, however she has didn’t articulate clear plans and positions.
For instance, when requested in the course of the major marketing campaign final fall to charge Supt. Alberto Carvalho’s job efficiency, she mentioned she was in no place to judge him as a result of he’s her boss. And through an interview in July she mentioned there have been colleges in District 5 that also don’t have air-con, however refused to call them on the grounds that it was data she obtained as a district worker.
We predict Griego is a better option due to her clear and constructive agenda, her worthwhile ground-level perspective and her demonstrated dedication to combating district forms to repair unaddressed issues. Voters in District 5 ought to give her the possibility to advocate for his or her college students as tenaciously as she has advocated for her personal.