LAUSD election – After years of bitter, high-spending LAUSD school board races fueled by charter backers and the teachers union, Tuesday’s election features notably low-budget contests. Several board incumbents are overwhelming favorites, and charter-aligned political groups h
For years, Los Angeles school board elections have felt like a referendum on the future of public education—fueled by tens of millions of dollars and matched, bruising attacks between charter supporters and the teachers union. But this election cycle, the war quiets where it once roared.
Three of the seven Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education seats are on the ballot Tuesday in comparatively low-spending contests. with incumbents positioned as overwhelming favorites. Charter school supporters who had poured tens of million of dollars into races to elect board members sympathetic to their vision have largely stepped aside—an outcome tied both to changing finances and a shift in strategy.
The absence of a major political push is visible in the races themselves. East San Fernando Valley incumbent Kelly Gonez faces one challenger. Jose Sagredo. who as a write-in candidate will not even have his name on the ballot. Two other incumbents—Nick Melvoin and Rocio Rivas—also face challengers with extremely limited campaign resources and no special-interest financial backing.
The charter money didn’t simply evaporate overnight. Charters have been a defining Los Angeles education storyline since the early 2000s. with privately operated. mostly nonunion public schools competing for students against district-run campuses. Starting in the early 1990s. charters gradually took hold in Los Angeles. convincing parents they offered an attractive alternative; they now enroll about 1 in 5 public school students living within LAUSD boundaries.
The political conflict sharpened in 2013. when the LA Unified board election brought wealthy charter advocates to the forefront of the opposition campaign against the teachers union. But now, the California Charter Schools Assn. doesn’t endorse candidates. and its political cousin CCSA Advocates does endorse—yet both groups have had less money to call on as major donors no longer remain in place.
Gregory McGinity. the executive director of CCSA Advocates. said the decision not to mount a high-cost campaign reflects strategy as much as necessity. “Our core electoral objective was to support the reelection of experienced board members who understand the importance of maintaining high-quality public school options for students and families. including Nick Melvoin and Kelly Gonez. ” McGinity said.
With Gonez facing virtually no meaningful opposition and Melvoin aided by his own donor base. McGinity argued that major outside spending from charter political groups wasn’t needed. “Given that Gonez has virtually invisible opposition and Melvoin has his own donor base. ‘the level of outside spending seen in prior marquee races was simply not necessary. ’” McGinity said.
That approach also connects to a broader political pivot at the state level. The charter association has changed its tactics in the race for state superintendent of public instruction by backing San Diego Unified school board President Richard Barrera. a candidate endorsed by the California Teachers Assn. McGinity said in a statement that “Richard Barrera has shown that supporting educators and supporting high-quality charter public schools are not mutually exclusive.”.
Some charter allies frame the current posture as pragmatic and closely tied to political timing. “Charter supporters ‘seem to be following the union money [rather] than fighting it. likely giving to candidates they perceive as winning. ’” said Lance Christensen. a charter ally who ran unsuccessfully for state superintendent in 2022.
The last time CCSA Advocates stayed away from a highly visible fight, that choice foreshadowed Tuesday’s approach. Four years ago. the group did not play a visible role backing anyone in the contest involving long-shot Christensen against incumbent Tony Thurmond. who was running for his second and final term with the backing of the California Teachers Assn.
In 2018, though, the group took a different course. CCSA Advocates spent about $40 million and failed to defeat both Thurmond and Gavin Newsom in his successful bid for governor.
Christensen said charter supporters have learned to survive by operating differently in California politics. “At this point. ” Christensen said. most charter school advocates “know that they have to survive through political jiu-jitsu or go extinct.” Still. political observers note that it is hard to imagine the earlier version of CCSA Advocates would not have gone full bore against Rocio Rivas—an anti-charter stance at the center of a broader conflict that began when Rivas replaced strongly pro-charter Monica Garcia. who termed out in 2022.
Rivas’ name is now tied to one of the most consequential recent charter battles on the LAUSD board. She led a charge to deny the renewal of Gabriella Charter School. which uses a substantial portion of the Echo Park campus where the district operates Logan Academy for Global Ecology. Both schools serve students from transitional kindergarten through eighth grade, and both have been affected by declining enrollment.
LAUSD’s charter division could find no basis under state law to recommend closing Gabriella. Yet the board majority—described as leaning anti-charter—voted 4 to 3 in October to shut down the school anyway. The decision was overturned by the county Board of Education and a judge.
Still, not all cases ended the same way. The district’s charter battles show that some schools with less clear-cut legal positions did not receive the same outcome.
The political fight around Rivas is already on record in union spending and personal fundraising numbers. United Teachers Los Angeles has made it clear that it will defend Rivas. spending close to $1 million through May for an independent campaign on her behalf. Rivas’ own campaign had raised $62,505, according to recent filings.
Rivas has also pushed for more budget transparency related to high-cost district contracts. The teachers union shares this priority, asserting that more money could be set aside for salary increases.
Her opponent, Raquel Zamora, teaches English in the L.A. Unified adult school and works for the district as an attendance counselor. Zamora is a member of the teachers union and. based on her responses in a candidate survey. seems somewhat less critical of charters than Rivas. Zamora’s campaign has raised $1,960.
In the campaign for another seat, Nick Melvoin is facing a challenger with far less reach. Melvoin has raised $348,763 for his campaign. His opponent is Ankur Patel. outreach director for Hindu University of America. who is critical of some charters but not as much as Rivas is. based on his survey responses. Patel worked three years as a staffer for school board member Scott Schmerelson and five years as a district substitute teacher. Patel has raised $20,060.
An unusual spender could still add pressure to the race. Retired businessman Bill Bloomfield has put $367,093 into an independent campaign on behalf of Melvoin. Bloomfield supports charters and is critical of the teachers union, but he does not consider himself a charter advocate.
Bloomfield has been a big spender in recent school board election cycles. In 2022, he contributed $4.6 million to a charter-friendly campaign committee in the L.A. board races. That committee spent $419,406 against Rivas and more than $2.3 million in support of her opponent, Maria Brenes.
For this cycle, the teachers union is also sitting out the Melvoin-Patel race. Some in the union remain bitter about negative campaigning that led to Zimmer’s loss and consider Melvoin too pro-charter. But the union has aligned with him on cuts to school police. reduced instructional screen time and cellphone limits for students. Observers also point to Melvoin’s strong Westside base as a factor that would be difficult for UTLA to overcome.
The broader question driving Tuesday’s low-key contests is where the charter money went. Two major wealthy donors—former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan and philanthropist Eli Broad—have died. They were described as steadfast in committing millions to create, essentially, a consistent anti-education-union political presence.
The outside ecosystem also changed. Money from outside Los Angeles has included contributions from the Doris and Donald Fisher Fund. which has wound down and gone out of business. Other major donors included former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg and Netflix founder Reed Hastings. who appear to have shifted their campaign money to friendlier political climates or prioritized direct aid to help charters grow and improve their services.
Charter-aligned giving has also narrowed from some family fortunes. Heirs to the fortune of the Walton family, which founded Walmart, have sharply reduced their collective pro-charter political contributions compared with their peak giving.
In the national political framework. some major conservative donors are less attracted to charters and have instead pushed voucher plans—public dollars for parents to send children to private schools. Their donations to elect like-minded officials has contributed to the rapid growth of states with new or expanded voucher plans. including Texas and New Hampshire.
As the LAUSD school board stands now, the majority consists of candidates elected with the endorsement of UTLA. This election, readers are left to understand, could not have changed that majority. Still. the outcome could affect whether UTLA strengthens its hand—or whether other constituencies such as charters gain power at the union’s expense.
Eric Premack, executive director of the Sacramento-based Charter School Development Center, cautioned against reading money as the final verdict. “Some of the big money accomplished some of the least,” Premack said. “Getting schools to really focus on their performance and their relationships with parents. city leaders and elected officials — rather than trying to buy their support with campaign dough — can really get you a lot of mileage for a lot less money.”.
For Tuesday’s voters, the difference from prior LAUSD races may be the volume. But the stakes remain rooted in the same fight—over who gets to shape public education in Los Angeles, and how much power will flow from campaign spending when the checks stop coming in the same way they once did.
LAUSD election Los Angeles school board charter schools UTLA Rocio Rivas Nick Melvoin Kelly Gonez campaign spending voucher plans