I am happy to endorse Scott Schmerelson for the LAUSD school board. He is an experienced educator who worked for 35 years. He turned around a troubled middle school. He knows what schools and students need. He would make a great school board member.
“Scott SCHMERELSON FOR SCHOOL BOARD 2015
“I have been a school site teacher, counselor and administrator for the past 35 years. I chose to always remain at the school site to work with students, parents and staff on a personal basis. I began my teaching career as a Spanish teacher with the School District of Philadelphia for 5 years and came to the Los Angeles Unified School District to continue as a Spanish teacher, English as a Second Language teacher, Secondary School Counselor, Assistant Principal of Secondary Counseling Services, Assistant Principal and Principal.
“I began my LAUSD career with a 12 year stay at Virgil Middle School in the Mid City area as a teacher, school counselor and Assistant Principal of Secondary Counseling Services. I later became an Assistant Principal at Griffith Middle School in East Los Angeles for 5 years and then became Principal at Lawrence Middle School in Chatsworth for 5 years and retired as Principal of Johnnie L. Cochran, Jr. Middle School in South Los Angeles for 11 years.
“I have been treasurer of the Middle Schools Principals’ Association and currently I am treasurer of the Cuban-American Teachers’ Association. I am a member of the Association of California School Administrators. I served a two year term as President of Region 16 and I currently am the Executive Director of Region 16. Region 16 encompasses the entire Los Angeles Unified School District.
“I consider my most effective endeavor was in accepting the offer to transfer from Lawrence Middle School to Mount Vernon Middle School in order to try to prevent the school from a state take-over due to a history of poor test scores, low morale and a decaying physical plant. The school was successful in avoiding a state take-over. The test scores, the physical plant and teacher-student-parent morale continued to significantly improve.
“I was also elected as Secondary Director of the Associated Administrators of Los Angeles. My goal was to assure all members that their rights would be protected. I believed that the strength of AALA is in all members participating in organization meetings. Our organizational meetings enabled fellow administrators from across the district to meet and share best practices. Some Local Districts do not thoroughly share operational issues at Principals’ meetings which are vital to the smooth functioning of our schools. Organizational meetings, on the other hand, present a balance of instructional and operational issues.
“I consider myself to be fiscally conservative and socially liberal. I believe all students should receive the best education possible and that all school should have the necessary funding to make the students successful. The school is where all available funding should be directed. As employees of LAUSD we all work for the children of the District. Every employee from the Superintendent down should focus on the school site when making fiscal decisions; that is where every available dollar should be directed. As a board member, will absolutely only use bond funding for its intended purpose. The last bond issue was to repair and upgrade our schools. That was a sacred trust between the voters and the District. You may be assured that as Board member I would follow the will of the people and see that the money is used as it was intended
Scott Schmerelson
Age: 63
Eduction: Master of Science in education, school administration, Cal State L.A.
Political experience: first run for public office
Website: scott4lausd.com, also facebook.com/Scott4LAUSD
Candidate Scott Schmerelson worked in LAUSD schools for 33 years and carries the endorsements of LAUSD’s administrators union, Associated Administrators of Los Angeles, as well as the California School Employees Association, which represents clerical workers, teachers aids and other classified positions.
And he’s no stranger to troubled schools. When LAUSD wanted to prevent a state takeover of Johnnie L. Cochran Jr. Middle School when it was Mount Vernon Middle School, Schmerelson was called in. During his five years as principal, he improved test scores, conditions and morale at the troubled Mid-City campus, according to his website.
Schmerelson wants to increase local control by sending more decision-making power to school site councils, which are campus-based bodies of administrators, teachers and parents. He also wants teachers to evaluate the performance of their peers, as opposed to administrators, and create mentoring systems to support underperforming educators.
“The average teacher has close to 10 years’ experience right now. Why in the world would we move to get rid of struggling teachers without doing everything we can to help them improve instruction,” Schmerelson states on his website.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
Thanks for spotlighting Schemerelson. He will be a good partner to Ratliff and others on the BoE who want the best for LAUSD, keeping public schools public, not charter.
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Am I embarrassed…must always proof read. Will not even make the correction…and this is not Freudian.
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Ellen,
I read all comments. I don’t have time to correct all errors but I corrected yours.
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Thank you, Diane, for highlighting this ESSENTIAL school board race.
The defeat of District 3’s Tamar Galatzan would send the rest of the country a powerful message that the Reformers agenda no longer resonates so easily. They have witnessed its consequences.
Backed by such rich luminaries like Eli Broad, John Deasy, Michael Bloomberg and the charter school empires, Galatzan is the single loudest and most active voice of their cause in LAUSD.
Galatzan has the backings of the rich Ed Reform editorial boards of The LA TIMES and THE LA DAILY NEWS.
The LA TIMES refuses to quit John Deasy even when his ghost only haunts the Lala land of Eli Broad and Bruce Reed’s Mickey Mouse Education Academy–a fitting tribute to Deasy’s own sponsored PhD and his self-serving belief in Wizard of Oz diplomas for “public servants” to do the bidding’s of the corporate rich.
Whenever Karin Klein and the LA TIMES’ Editorial Board chastised their man Deasy, it was always in her infuriating passive voice–lightly admonishing that precocious Deasy’ for his maybe-not-the-best-idea iPads, Klein and the rest of the gang were rock solid in their completely UNSUBSTANTIATED mythology of Deasy’s “miracle” of rising test scores and graduation rates. NEVER ONCE have they did any reporting as to what in the world contributed to this–only it happened under Deasy’s watch.
I’m not joking. Not ONE ARTICLE of any investigation on WHAT went into those figures and “how” it happened. Not one…not one…not one. They just printed the “data” and called it journalism.
Karin Klein has robotically spewed this same sentence in every editorial and talk show appearance. Any J-School student would immediately know to ask even the basic questions, but she failed time and time again in her profession to do this.
Klein’s LA TIMES neo-liberal education agenda mirrors Jeb Bush and Rahm Emanuel’s who believe that John Deasy was the competent deliverer of education for OTHER PEOPLE’S CHILDREN. The Times’ embraced his pedagogy and management as what LA kids most needed to succeed. NEVER would they put their own children in the milieu that Deasy thought was desirable for LAUSD’s kids.
Don’t even get me started about the other LA daily. Unbelievably, it’s editorial board is even worse.
In endorsing Galatzan, the LA DAILY NEWS’ wrote: “The school board can use more of Galatzan’s pragmatism as it wrestles with a budget deficit. She decries the board’s tendency to identify a program in need of support and assume “the superintendent will find the money.”
Never mind the millions and millions of taxpayer dollars Galatzan wasted on such shoddy pedagogy of the iPads and her war to prevent any type of governance or oversight of the program…The Daily News LOVES that she will stick it to the unions and teachers and think the kids of LA need her tough love.
Both the LA TIMES and DAILY NEWS editorial positions on LA’s children are viewed through the prism of their own vast, bubble privilege. Their championing of Galatzan is based on the fervent hope that her victory and the money poured in from charter groups and Reform “philanthropists” will hopefully pave the way for future victories for a movement that has stumbled badly over the past two years.
I hope Galatzan will be forced into a run off. I hope then all those rich, moneyed interests and John Deasy come out of the shadows and actively campaign for her. I hope that there will be a one-on-one debate with Galatzan.
While I know that progressive education in LA remains elusive, a Galatzan defeat would be a gratifying stake in the fat, black heart of this city’s Ed Reformers.
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The Ayn Rand Libertarians at the LA Weekly are holding on to Deasy’s Ghost even more than the heartbroken Karin Klein at the LA Times. In Hillel Aron’s heavy-handed hit piece against Scott Folsom, Bennett Kayser, and myself, he called me “anti-Deasy”. I was thinking, is Deasy still a thing? This is 2015 after all.
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Now that Deasy has been appointed by Eli Broad to be his Supt. in Residence at the Broad Academy, and he and Ben Austin have been also chosen by Broad to work with him and Welch on furthering Vergara, it is clear that Deasy is no more than old news….at least until we learn what the FBI found in their investigation of his dealings with Apple and Pearson.
It was LA Weekly that lauded Austin for his Adelanto dirty work at PRev paid for by Broad and the Waltons. Ah yes, birds of feather manipulate together. Who bothers to read LA Weekly?
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Does UTLA support this candidate?
Sent from my iPhone
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At this time, UTLA does not. UTLA is putting it’s resources behind Bennett Kayser, who is in a tough re-election bid. I can say this with some validity because I am a member of UTLA’s House of Reps. UTLA will likely be looking to endorse a District 3 candidate after the election; officials anticipate that race to go into a runoff. That said… if I were a Valley voter, I would vote for Scott Schmerelson every day and twice on Sunday. I worked at Cochran for five years; I was UTLA Chapter Chair two of those years at Cochran. Let me put it to you this way… everything Diane mentioned is true. Schmerelson, in my view, is a teacher’s principal, who provided a stable, safe environment for teachers and students to grow. He left every school he went to in a much better condition after he left. Cochran was no exception. Schmerelson will effectively and passionately represent the Valley with intelligence, class, poise and reason… something Galatzan has failed to do.
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UTLA has not endorsed in this race, but four candidates, including Scott Schmerelson, have been deemed “acceptable” and this information has been conveyed to the membership. I am honored that I am also included on this list.
As a father of five with my four school age children enrolled in the district, I am running to bring a parent’s perspective to the deliberations. This is something that is currently missing from the LAUSD School Board.
I decided to enter this race when the district made me fight for services for my two daughters who are on the autism spectrum. The teachers and staff at their schools agreed that they needed these services, but the district’s top-down policies prohibited the teachers from including them in their IEPs. After hiring a lawyer and spending two days fighting the bureaucracy, I decided that I would run to change these policies.
Too often I watch Board meetings and get frustrated that those I agree with are not standing up for the values that they have been elected to represent. I will be that fighter.
For more information, please visit my web site at http://www.ChangeTheLAUSD.com
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Carl…I appreciate your candidacy, your petition, your effort, and thank you for running, but when you see Scott Schemerelson’s VITA I would hope you understand that he can operate as a Board member with far more depth and breadth of understanding the workings of LAUSD. This makes him the only viable candidate who can beat Tamar Galatzan.
I would hope you and the other candidates get behind his campaign so we can get rid of Deasy-lover and Broad acolyte Galatzan who was so devisive in smearing Vladovic in the last election. There would be no need for an expensive runoff if other candidates give their support and endorsement to Schemerelson now.
There is such need for an experienced educator to win the race and represent students and not billionaires and charter operators on the LAUSD BoE.
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Ms. Lubic:
While I appreciate Scott Schmerelson’s experience as an administrator and an educator, I think that it is important to point out that if he were to be added to the Board, there will not be any members with children enrolled in the district. This would leave out a very important perspective to the deliberations.
I showed consistently during the debates that I not only have a firm grasp of the issues facing the district, but would be a vocal opponent against the status quo. In a past article, you noted that I have “been a vocal foe of Deasy.” The Daily News called me “one of Galatzan’s most outspoken opponents.” The LA School Report stated that I “was the only candidate to bring up MiSiS” during the first debate. I have been a staunch defender of teachers victimized by “Teacher Jail” without due process. This has all earned me the support of teachers, former teachers and retired teachers and the endorsement of the North Valley Democratic Club.
As of today, the charter operators and other supporters of the status quo have spent $260,612.70 in their efforts to re-elect the incumbent. At this point in the game, there is no such thing a spoiler. A vote for any of us helps ensure that Ms. Galatzan will not reach 50% + 1. For anyone who wants their representative to be a fighter, I ask that you invest your vote in me.
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UTLA has limited resources and cannot commit the same amount of money and resources to all their preferred candidates. The union is also fighting tooth and nail to get a decent contract after years of cuts. That is why they had to stay out of this race. However, if Schmerelson were to be in a run-off, there is little doubt that UTLA would give him their full support. He has an impeccable reputation as a teacher/leader and has already received several endorsements such as the administrator’s union and SIEU.
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It should be noted that the Los Angeles County Democratic Party failed to endorse Ms. Galatzan.
http://www.lacdp.org/endorsements/
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I endorse Scott Schmerelson for the Los Angeles Unified School District Board Seat District 3.
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I wish good luck to Mr. Schmerelson.
But hopefully he’ll get over the edudeform speak of “best practice”-puke puke!
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I personally endorse, and Joining Forces for Education endorses Scott Schemerelson for LAUSD BoE.
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I personally endorse Carl Petersen. He is a parent that is well informed as to the often obfuscated issues embedded in LAUSD. He has students in the schools and he will represent a voice on the board that will speak for those of us with students in the system. He understands the frustration that other parents have experienced. When matters such as MISIS or Ipads or BIC were being voted on, he empathized with the parents and Teachers frustrations. LAUSD is very broken. The number of policies that are misinterpreted by Principals and then acted upon is staggering. The number of Charter Schools that aren’t being watched is unsettling. We need greater transparency and accountability from them.
I believe he will fight for the Parents that can’t be at these meetings, I think he will fight for the taxpayers that screamed for the School Board to stop agreeing to spend money on high tech gadgets we don’t have the budget to purchase or maintain. I believe he will fight for the unjustly jailed Teachers placed in Teachers jail.
He will fight. Nobody really knows him in the district, nobody has ever dealt with him in the district. I like Scott Schemerelson, but for the school board district 3 seat, I want Carl Petersen to represent the Parents and the Teachers and the Students in our district.
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An endorsement from a pseudonym is not valid. Who are you?
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I personally endorse the hard working teachers assistants at Lausd. Without their hard work and devotion to our students, schools would not function. They are the backbone of education, teachers are nothing without them. Oh yeah and Deasy should be behind bars.
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