School Board Candidates Clash on Budget Cuts

With more budget cuts looming, controversy over how to evaluate teachers and endless complaints about deteriorating facilities, you might wonder why anyone  would seek a seat on the LAUSD school board.

In the case of 3rd District incumbent Tamar Galatzan and challenger Louis Pugliese, the answers are similar. Addressing about 40 people at a candidate forum Thursday night, both said they had ideas to improve education in the Valley and throughout the district.

Pugliese, a former Los Angeles teacher who now teaches educational psychology at CSUN, said the district could avert much of the painful budget cutting ahead by supporting the proposal of Gov. Jerry Brown to do away with local community redevelopment authorities. That could reduce by nearly half the $409 million that remains to be trimmed from the district budget.

He said he would form a parents advisory committee to foster greater parent involvement and also turn the attention of the school board to finding better ways to serve students.

After four years on the board, Galatzan seemed more restrained about promising  new improvements. To set an example during austere times, she took a cut in her school board salary and uses her own car and gas for school district business. She said further budget cuts would almost certainly mean teacher layoffs and that even basic maintenance at older schools couldn't be taken for granted.

That was hardly a surprise to members of the audience, seated in the assembly hall of Sherman Oaks Center for Enriched Studies, 18605 Erwin St. The heating system that serves the hall has been out of order for several months and the room temperature dropped over the course of the forum.

The event was sponsored by the League of Women Voters Los Angeles and the 31st District of the PTSA. Representatives of the two groups, along with a teacher and a high school student, took turns asking questions of each candidate. In addition, Galatzan and Pugliese fielded questions from the audience that had been written on cards and screened for appropriate content.

Here and there, the process revealed difference between the two candidates.

Pugliese, for example, said he would resist the encroachment of businesses onto school grounds. "I would definitely draw the line at corporation sponsorship of schools." Galatzan, on the other hand, said she wasn't happy with the idea of corporate banners in schools but could accept them if it meant, for example, there would be funds for her son's physical education class.

Pugliese opposed fining students $250 for being a minute late to class. "We criminalize behavior that, in my day, was just kids being kids," he said. Responded Galatzan: "If students don't want to get a ticket, they should be in class when school starts."

Galatzan said charter schools in the district are worthwhile only if they improve student performance. She said district policy allows charter schools to use district classrooms that are empty.

Pugliese, on the other hand, said he would not allow a district high school to share facilities with a charter high school. Instead, he would use empty district high school classrooms for charter elementary schools, creating a campus with all grade levels.

Neither candidate was eager to embrace UTLA, the union representing district teachers. Based on previous actions, the union "could be perceived as standing in the way of reform," Pugliese said. Still, he added, "I don't want to write the union off.  I want them to become a partner with us."

Galatzan said the union opposed a motion she co-sponsored to speed up the dismissals of teachers who had been fired for cause but remained on the district payroll. The union can be a force for good, she said, or a stumbling block.

Members of the panel were Fran Lapides, League of Women Voters Los Angeles education committee co-chair; Ellen Eckard, 31st District PTSA president; Jennifer Spence, fourth grade teacher at El Oro Way elementary school; and Khatcher Margossian, a student at North Hollywood High School for highly gifted students. The moderator was Barbara Inatsugu.