LAUSD Candidate Janie Dam on PROP-39 Co-Locations

“If you seek to perpetuate district-charter divisiveness, I am not the candidate for you.”

– BD3 Candidate Janie Dam

Janie Dam is running against incumbent Scott Schmerelson in LAUSD’s Board District 3, which covers most of the western San Fernando Valley. As part of my ongoing Candidate Forum series, Dam was asked five questions about PROP-39 co-locations. For the introduction to this subject along with answers from other candidates, please see the article LAUSD Candidate Forum: PROP-39 Co-Locations.

The following are the candidate's responses, printed exactly how she provided them with the exception of some minor formatting edits:

• Question 1: Do you support the "Creating a Charter Schools Co-Location Policy to Mitigate Impacts Caused by Proposition 39" authored by Board President Jackie Goldberg and Dr. Rocio Rivas? Uncommitted

This is not a question that I can answer with a simple “YES” or “NO”.

It is every organization’s right and responsibility to protect its own programs and initiatives, and a school district is no different. However, I cannot support the Goldberg/Rivas resolution in its present form (VERSION 2 08-22-23), which in my view does not sufficiently satisfy the letter and spirit of the applicable law.

California Proposition 39 represents the expressed will of California voters to support public school choice by requiring that School District facilities be shared equitably among all public school students who reside in the district, including those enrolled in charter schools. Even after significant revision the resolution is still focused on removing and eliminating charters rather than on making a bona fide effort to facilitate the schooling of All children, including those whose families have chosen to enroll them in a charter school.

If elected I can help the Board think outside of the box to generate additional school spaces overall, for all schools involved, both traditional and charter, to alleviate overcrowding and minimize conflict. Kansas City, for example, has already begun converting vacant office spaces into additional state-of-the-art classrooms.

• Question 2: Under The way that PROP-39 is currently implemented, rooms used to provide Special Education Services are considered to be "empty" and must be turned over to a charter school to satisfy its demand for space. As a Board member would you work to end this discriminatory practice? Yes

As a veteran general education teacher who has co-taught high school math with special education teachers assigned to students with severe needs, and a former Local Educational Agency level testing coordinator responsible for special needs accommodations on high-stakes state-mandated and college entry exams, I understand first-hand how important small class sizes, wellness centers, and special programs workspaces truly are. The District should reorganize the Charter Schools Division as needed to both improve its implementation of Prop 39 and to find alternatives for housing charter school services and district school services.

• Question 3: The text of PROP-39 specifies that charter schools that base their space requests on inflated enrollment must pay an over-allocation fee. Currently, charter schools have a past-due balance of $3,708,006. As a Board Member would you revoke the charter of any school that refused to pay these fees when a bill is presented? Uncommitted

Billing errors are made and disputed all the time. Not having been provided the facts surrounding a school’s refusal to pay a bill, I cannot answer “YES” or “NO” to this question. But as a School Board member I would take every decision to close down a school very seriously. School closings disrupt student learning, put additional stress onto parents and cause teachers to lose their jobs.

Question 4: In April of last year $7,678,022 of over-allocation debt was suddenly wiped off of the balance sheet without any explanation to the public. As a Board Member would you demand an investigation to determine whether this write-off was legal and proper? Yes

I would demand a professional, genuinely independent audit.

• Question 5: The North Valley Military Institute (NVMI) was co-located on the campus of Sun Valley High School / Valley Oaks Center For Enriched Studies (VOCES) when one of its administrators was accused of “abhorrent child sex abuse” against a student. It does not appear that parents of students on the public school campus were ever notified about these accusations. As a Board Member would you terminate the PROP-39 lease agreement for any charter school that put LAUSD students at a district campus in danger? Yes

All children should be kept safe whether in a charter or traditional district school. It is also the District’s job to keep all parents informed. Given the animosity against co-located charters coming from their hosting campuses, and now from the School Board itself, it is neither reasonable nor savvy to expect that the charter school will immediately want to reach out to the parents of the host school about an incident whether real or rumored that may jeopardize the charter’s use of the facility. The Board should anticipate this sensitivity and make sure that the District timely steps in to fully disclose to all parents. And, just as swiftly, the district should assist a charter school to properly relocate if personnel and events on the district campus pose a real threat to students enrolled in that charter school.

• Do you have any other thoughts that you would like to express about this subject?

I am the single parent of children with very different needs who have benefited from both traditional district and charter schools. I am also a teacher and UTLA member who has been employed and grown professionally at both a district school and charter school with traditions of excellence. If you seek to perpetuate district-charter divisiveness, I am not the candidate for you. If you want educational policies that serve all youths regardless of the category of public school that their family decides is best for them, you should vote for me.

Thank you Carl Petersen and ChangeTheLAUSD.com for providing this forum.

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Carl Petersen is a parent advocate for public education, particularly for students with special education needs, who serves as the Education Chair for the Northridge East Neighborhood Council. As a Green Party candidate in LAUSD’s District 2 School Board race, he was endorsed by Network for Public Education (NPE) Action. Dr. Diane Ravitch has called him “a valiant fighter for public schools in Los Angeles.” For links to his blogs, please visit www.ChangeTheLAUSD.com. Opinions are his own.