#AnotherDayAnotherCharterScandal

Doubling Down On Excluding Parents

The newly crowned LAUSD Board President’s reasons for not reinstating the Parent Engagement and Special Education Committees are full of holes.

“Children with disabilities in particular have been heavily impacted by the shift to distance learning and the physical closure of our campuses.”

- LAUSD Board President Kelly Gonez

It took less than 24 hours for the new Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) Board President, Kelly Gonez, to throw her predecessor under the bus. When asked at a meeting of the Community Advisory Committee (CAC) to reconsider her decision at the previous day’s board meeting to turn down Board Member Scott Schmerelson’s request to reinstate the Parent Engagement and Special Education committees, Gonez emphasized in her reply that it was former Board President Richard Vladovic who had initially suspended all of the board committees. She went on to say that “unfortunately, my predecessor did not agendize a conversation on special education or parent engagement” during his tenure, but this would be one of her first actions as Board President.

Canceled meetings in April

As the chaos of the pandemic descended upon the LAUSD last March resulting in the hasty transition to distance learning, Vladovic suspended committee meetings along with regularly scheduled board meetings. Unable to safely meet in person, the district, along with every other public entity in California, had to figure out how to use technology to fill the gap while still complying with the state’s open meeting laws. The first regular meeting of the board after the facilities shutdown did not occur until May 19, 2020.

Spring turned into summer and the board meetings fell back into a more routine schedule as life in a pandemic became the new normal. Many of the district’s students continued to struggle with distance learning, especially those with special education needs. Parents also clamored for details about when a transition back to in-classroom learning might happen and how it would be accomplished. Committee…