Your guide to the LAUSD District 7 school board primary election

One candidate, Lydia A. Gutiérrez, is running against incumbent Tanya Ortiz Franklin to represent District 7 on the Los Angeles Board of Education.

The seven-member school board sets policy for the nation’s second-largest school district, which educates about 420,000 students and employs some 74,000 teachers, administrators and other workers. The school board is accountable for the district’s annual general fund budget of about $10 billion. Members also hire and evaluate the superintendent.

The school board races are nonpartisan. Although the March election is a primary, there are only two candidates in this race, so the woman who wins will be elected. District 7 stretches from South L.A. through Gardena and Carson to the Harbor area, including San Pedro and Wilmington.

The Times asked both candidates questions about their priorities, their opinion of L.A. Unified Supt. Alberto Carvalho, charter schools and school police. Gutierrez had an opportunity to critique Franklin, while Franklin was asked about her accomplishments in office.

Gutierrez declined to participate in the survey, citing past dissatisfaction with the coverage of her previous runs for elected office. In a brief exchange, she said that her views had not changed over the four years since she last ran for this seat.

The answers are below, summarized or lightly edited for length or clarity.

Lydia Gutierrez

The information below is based on interviews prior to the current election cycle, public records and her website.

Age: 66

Occupation: Public school teacher in Long Beach Unified School District.

Political party: Republican

Experience: Taught kindergarten to 8th grade in public schools. Also taught two years in Colombia. Outside of education, she worked in the aerospace field as an administrator for military high-tech equipment projects. Also served on the local neighborhood council and has been active in the California Teachers Assn.

Priorities: Scheduling all board meetings in the evening to make them accessible to the public and especially parents. Also wants satellite offices set up in different areas during these meetings so that parents could voice concerns “when it comes to open mike time. If the board doesn’t think it’s feasible, at least allow my district to try it out.” She also wants to review test scores and attendance to find and expand best practices. She also wants to address the district’s long-term budget problems, including unfunded liabilities for retiree pensions and health benefits.

Charter schools: “The first objective is what is beneficial to students.” Just because space at a campus is available to share with a charter school, “it still may not be the best option. You still have to have harmony.” She would limit campus sharing “if that is going to be a problem.”

Website: lydia4education@gmail.com

Board member Tanya Ortiz Franklin

Age: 39

Occupation: LAUSD school board member.

Political party: Democratic

Experience: Before her election to the school board in 2020, Franklin was a senior administrator at Partnership for L.A. Schools, a nonprofit that manages 20 schools with 13,500 students on behalf of L.A. Unified. She was an L.A. Unified middle school teacher from 2005 to 2010. She has a 1-year-old daughter.

Priorities: Getting more students prepared to “thrive in the college, career and life of their choice.” Helping “students to thrive in the classroom and employees to thrive in their work. ... With the ending of COVID relief dollars, declining enrollment and a structural deficit, we must make sure all budget decisions are student-centered.” With the adoption of a “coherent strategic plan” and tools to monitor progress, “we can now understand in real time where students are meeting or missing academic standards. From here, we must ensure ... that educators have the skills and support to teach, intervene and accelerate student learning.”

On Supt. Carvalho: “He is rightly improving the conditions needed to improve student outcomes: a coherent instructional approach, common assessment suite, settled labor contracts, more efficient systems, the beginnings of capital planning, proactive public communication and more. We can improve together in collaborating meaningfully with families, unions and partners and discussing real budgetary trade-offs.”

Accomplishments: Policies that she created or advocated for, she says, resulted “in significantly improved school conditions for students in grading, internet access, arts equity and more. With my board colleagues, I hired a new superintendent, approved a districtwide assessment platform and approved labor contracts with raises up to 30%. I also advocated for increased funding at the state and federal levels.”

Charter schools: Franklin has concerns about elements of a new district policy that would restrict the sharing of campuses with charter schools, but noted that the rules are not yet in final form. “Charter schools can accelerate student achievement by implementing innovations, extending learning time and being more responsive to their communities in ways that are sometimes difficult for LAUSD. In a time of fiscal instability, I’m unlikely to approve new charter applications, but I will support renewing effective charters and sharing public school facility space fairly for all students.”

School police: Franklin has been the strongest voice on the Board of Education for eliminating school police. “When we are forced to make difficult budget decisions next year, I will prioritize spending public education dollars not on law enforcement but on school- and community-based approaches such as mental health, restorative justice, and safe passages” to and from campuses.

Quote: Enrollment has “shrunk so much and yet our staff has increased, particularly with the COVID dollars. So, people sometimes hear the story of ‘we’re spending more than we’re taking in,’ but they don’t believe that there’s any real consequence to that, because we’ve been able to get out of it for the last handful of years. That’s not healthy for the long term. ... I am in favor of putting everything out there now as soon as possible. And it’s not that we have to make all the hard decisions this June, but we should start to engage in what are those real choices that would set us up for long-term vitality.”

Website: tanyaforlausd.com