Los Angeles Daily News: Allegations of waste, fraud and abuse fly during LAUSD debate

by Olga Grigoryants — AUGUST 23, 2024

Accusations of fraud, waste and abuse filled the Wednesday night debate hosted by the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Association between Los Angeles Unified School District board incumbent Scott Schmerelson and his challenger, Dan Chang.

The two men are running for the seat on LAUSD’s seven-member school board to represent District 3, which encompasses several neighborhoods stretching from North Hollywood to Sherman Oaks, Van Nuys and most of the West Valley communities.

School board officials create policy for the second-largest school district in the nation, which enrolls nearly 420,000 students and employs about 74,000 teachers and other employees. The board also oversees the district’s budget of about $10 billion and makes hiring decisions for a superintendent.

Schmerelson was born in Philadelphia and earned his B.A. in Foreign Language Education from Temple University in Pennsylvania. He was an assistant principal at Griffith Middle School in East Los Angeles for five years and the principal at Lawrence Middle School in Chatsworth for another five years.

Challenger Chang is a middle school math teacher and a graduate of UC Berkeley and the UCLA Anderson School of Management. He is the chairman of the board of directors of Valley Charter Schools. In 2012, he co-founded the Los Angeles Fund for Public Education, which involved artists to support LAUSD arts education programs.

During Wednesday’s debate, Chang said Superintendent Alberto Carvalho “lied to the school board and the school board played along with it. Now tens of thousands of dollars at every single elementary school in (LAUSD) were taken away. Students last year didn’t get the art teachers they deserve.”

He added: “If we could stop the fraud, waste, and abuse that is happening at L.A. Unified and bring that money back to our schools… amazing things can happen.”

The accusations came the same day Chang wrote an op-ed in the Daily News on Aug. 21, claiming that LAUSD misappropriated $81,954.50 put aside for an elementary school in the San Fernando Valley. Because of alleged misappropriation, Chang claimed, the school didn’t receive three additional arts teachers on their campus.

Authored by former Los Angeles schools Supt. Austin Beutner, Prop. 28 passed in 2022.aiming to fund expanded arts education in California’s K-12 schools, funding music, theater, dance and other arts education.

But earlier this year, Beutner sent a letter to Gov. Gavin Newsom, criticizing district officials for taking funding and instead of expanding arts programs, using it for other purposes.

Chang claimed in his op-ed that similar misappropriation took place at other elementary schools across Los Angeles while Carvalho and members of the LAUSD school board members turned a blind eye to the issue.

“I’ve uncovered the budgetary shell game called Missing Arts Teachers. I’ve had enough. I am running for the LAUSD Board of Education seat in Board District 3 to put an end to LAUSD’s fraud, waste and abuse,” Chang wrote.

In response to Chang’s accusations, Schmerelson said during Wednesday’s debate that he would check with LAUSD’s inspector general whether misappropriations of funds intended for the arts program happened.

“I’m going to check with our inspector general tomorrow and ask her if it’s true that Mr. Dan Chang reported to you fraud in ways that you did nothing and I will ask her if that is a true statement,” he said.

Jana Carter, an LAUSD spokeswoman wrote in an email to the Daily News that the district “recognizes the profound importance of the arts and prioritizes arts instruction, programming and investments. We are committed to providing arts exposure for every student in Los Angeles Unified regardless of their zip code.”

Carter added that since voters approved Prop. 28, the law required to boost “arts funding to provide equitable  access to the arts districtwide rather than at individual school sites.” In response, LAUSD increased its total arts budget from $74 million in 2022-2023 to over $206 million in 2023-2024. Arts staffing has grown from 273 full-time employees in 2022-2023 to 520 this year. That number is expected to grow to 726 next year, according to Carter.

Asked how school officials make sure the students are at the center of their decisions, Schmerelson said, the school board makes sure that “all of our schools have everything they need as far as textbooks, instructional materials, and the best features possible.”

But Chang said the number of students who feel unsafe on L.A. Unified campuses has doubled in recent years.

“Students are screaming out throughout the district’s home surveys and the school board and Scott had the ability to take action,” he said.

Asked about the school board’s role and whether it has more power than a superintended, Schmerelson said, “he knows very clearly that we’re running the show. In terms of budget, curriculum, all aspects of running a school distinct we are the decision makers.”

School board members who have no other outside job make about $125,000 a year and meet twice a month, according to Schmerelson. He said his typical day includes meeting with teachers, parents, students custodial and cafeteria staff.

“District 3 is a very successful board district,” he said. “If you would survey who’s happy and where, District 3 parents, students and teachers would say District 3 is doing very very well and people are happy.”

He noted his goal was to help “teachers, parents and kids by making sure that our kids are getting everything that they need, especially mental health support.”

Chang said it was important to cut bureaucracy and “get more money to our schools. We need safer schools.”

Rachel Wagner, who leads the largest parent advocacy Parents Supporting Teachers, and whose son attends school in Encino, said she felt frustrated that the schools were not given an increase in arts teachers and programs.

“They had the same number of teachers from the prior years,” she said. “So how could you claim more art construction when the number of teachers has stayed the same?”

Another parent Christie Pesicka, who is part of the United Parents Los Angeles group, said she was planning to vote for Chang because “Schmerelson has been looking out for the best interest of teachers but there’s no one looking out for the children.”

“Most of us, parents, think Dan Chang is the only one looking out for kids,” she said.