Community Board High Five

About Community Board 5 Servicing the needs of more than 184,000 residents composed of a variety of ethnic and income group that reflect in a true sense the mosaic mirror of the City of Brooklyn.

Allison Greenwood Bajracharya is an L.A. Unified parent who lives in Los Feliz. She was the operations and strategy chief at the Camino Nuevo Charter Academy network of schools until she stepped down in November. Her two children attend Franklin Avenue Elementary in Los Feliz. She has 18 years of experience working in public education.

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Prior to her job at Camino Nuevo, she worked as a public school teacher in New Orleans before moving to Los Angeles to get her master’s degree in public policy from USC. She is chair of the Silverlake Jewish Community Center’s board and a board member of STEM Preparatory charter schools and United Parents and Students. “This is bigger than any candidate’s campaign. It’s about making sure all our children have the opportunity to learn, prosper, and succeed,” she said in a statement when she began an online calling on Gov.

Gavin Newsom and the state legislature to provide new school funding in order to help end the Los Angeles teacher strike. Bajracharya has raised in contributions. Her endorsements include Students for Education Reform, families and community members. Graciela Ortiz is a Huntington Park councilwoman and a social worker who has worked for L.A. Unified as a pupil services and attendance counselor at Banning High School, Peary Middle School and Linda Esperanza Marquez High School, where she notes she became a UTLA member. Ortiz was elected to serve on Huntington Park’s City Council in March 2015. She was vice mayor in 2015-16 and mayor in 2016-17, when she voted in favor of a moratorium on new charters schools in Huntington Park which lasted for one year.

Ortiz told Speak Up in an that she had to “wear that hat” as a councilwoman and that the charter moratorium was temporary. “My view on schools, in general, is I believe in good schools, period. I believe in good schools in all our communities. To put a label on a school, I don’t believe it’s fair. That’s a charter school, that’s a public school, that’s an option school, that’s another LAUSD school. Schools are schools. And we need good schools.

So I believe in good schools, and I believe in good programs. We have amazing programs in many of our schools, and we don’t advertise it enough to our communities, to our parents.” Ortiz has raised in contributions. Her endorsements include elected officials from the southeast cities, as well as L.A. City Councilmember Gil Cedillo from District 1, who represents the areas northeast of downtown that are in Board District 5. Other endorsements include the Association of Pupil Services and Attendance Counselors, the National Association of Social Workers and Los Angeles School Police Association. Heather Repenning has served Mayor Eric Garcetti in various roles including director of external affairs. She has a daughter attending an elementary school in Silver Lake.

She told Speak UP in an about the importance of havin g a parent of an L.A. Unified student on the board.

“I think it’s really important. At the end of the day, we’re representing the clients of LAUSD, which are the kids. I don’t think it’s the only perspective that should be represented on the board. And I certainly understand the importance of having educators and administrators on the board.

But the parent perspective is a really important one to have in the mix. I talk to parents every day about how they’re making decisions around their children’s education, how they’re trying to figure it out. And I think having that perspective there is a really important one, particularly when it comes to enrollment.” Repenning has raised in contributions.

Her endorsements include Mayor Garcetti and local unions such as Service Employees International Union (SEIU) Local 99, which represents cafeteria workers, school bus drivers and other classified school employees, United Firefighters of Los Angeles City Local 112 and Los Angeles League of Conservation Voters. David Valdez is a Los Angeles County arts commissioner. Valdez is a graduate of Garfield High School and Yale University.

He also currently serves on the Silver Lake Neighborhood Council. He is a member of the board of directors for Jovenes Inc., an organization serving homeless youth in Boyle Heights. “As an artist, I am invested in revitalizing arts programs at our schools. Avtomaticheskoe zaryadnoe ustrojstvo kulon instrukciya. Arts are a proven method of improving educational outcomes and our students need access to programs so that they may continue to develop confidence, soft skills, and leadership abilities,” Valdez states on his website. He also mentions more support to teachers, increased funding and a cap on classroom sizes as part of his campaign’s platform. Valdez has raised $ in contributions and lists no endorsements.