Nearly two weeks since Election Day, it appears one incumbent has retained their seat and three of the four Los Angeles Unified School Board races will go to a runoff in November.
Here’s where the results stand as of Friday afternoon:
- Board District 1: Longtime Dorsey High School educator Sherlett Hendy Newbill and community organizer Kahllid Al-Alim rose to the top in the most crowded school LAUSD school board race on the ballot. Hendy Newbill overtook Al-Alim’s early lead, a possible indication that the mid-February news of Al-Alim’s pre-campaign antisemitic social media activity swayed later voters. The teachers union suspended its campaign supporting Al-Alim and, the day before the election, withdrew its endorsement completely. Al-Alim apologized and refused to withdraw from the race. LAUSD board staffer and education nonprofit co-founder Didi Watts is pacing for third place. Current board member George McKenna will retire at the end of the year.
- Board District 3: Two-term incumbent Scott Schmerelson is headed to a run-off against Dan Chang, a middle school teacher who has also worked in charter schools. Third place vote-getter and teacher Raquel Villalta acknowledged in a Monday Instagram post that she would not advance to the general election.
- Board District 5: Two candidates with strong union endorsements — Karla Griego, backed by the teachers union, and Graciela Ortiz, favored by school support staff— lead the race. Retiring board President Jackie Goldberg endorsed Fidencio Gallardo, who is in third place.
- Board District 7: Incumbent Tanya Ortiz Franklin led Long Beach teacher Lydia Gutiérrez from the first vote drop and declared victory on March 7. Gutiérrez has not responded to multiple requests for comment from LAist since the election.
Four of the seven LAUSD board districts were on the March primary ballot. L.A. Unified is the nation's second largest school district with more than 538,000 students attending traditional public and charter schools.
A note on the results
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Keep in mind that in tight races particularly, the winner may not be determined for days or weeks after Election Day. In Los Angeles County, the first batch of results released includes vote-by-mail ballots received before March 5, followed by early votes cast in-person at vote centers, then votes cast in-person on Election Day.
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The results you see are the votes counted through March 29, when they were certified.
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As of March 29, here's where the vote count stands:
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Total count to date:
- 1,641,715 (28.9% of registered voters)
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Estimate still to be counted: 0
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Note: In California, ballots postmarked on or before March 5 are counted toward the results as long as they arrive within seven days of the election (March 12). Results must be certified by county election officials by April 4.
Board District 1
Current board member George McKenna is retiring after a more than 50-year career as a teacher and administrator in LAUSD, Inglewood, Compton, and Pasadena schools. The Board District 1 race has drawn more candidates than any other LAUSD seat on the ballot.
You can read more about the job expected of whoever ultimately becomes a board member here. And you can read more about the Board District 1 race here.
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About the candidates
Kahllid Al-Alim: Al-Alim is a community organizer born and raised in South Central L.A. Al-Alim’s children attended Crenshaw and Dorsey High School and he has been part of several parent-led education initiatives in the district. The fundraising frontrunner, Al-Alim apologized Tuesday, Feb. 20 for past social media posts that supported assigning an antisemitic book to students, and for liking “graphic content.”
Rina Tambor: Tambor is a parent and tutor, as well as a former teacher in New York City. She has three grandchildren who have attended LAUSD schools.
John Aaron Brasfield: Brasfield is an educator and coach born and raised in Los Angeles. Brasfield told LAist he’s worked for the Los Angeles Unified School District in various capacities including special education and athletics since he was a teenager. “[I have] had the opportunity to experience over 140 schools during two decades of service,” Brasfield said. He currently works security part-time.
Christian Flagg: Flagg is a community organizer born and raised in South Central Los Angeles. He currently works as the director of training at Community Coalition. The social justice nonprofit, known as CoCo, was founded as a substance abuse and treatment nonprofit in 1990. Flagg spent a decade in the Bay Area working with youth through education and recreation.
Sherlett Hendy Newbill: Hendy Newbill has worked in LAUSD since 1998 and is currently an education policy advisor for retiring Board District 1 representative George McKenna. She is an athletic director at Susan Miller Dorsey High School, her alma mater. Hendy Newbill was also an administrator at the school, coached girls basketball, and taught physical education and psychology. Hendy Newbill unsuccessfully ran for school board in 2014.
Didi Watts: Watts is the current chief of staff to LAUSD Board Member Tanya Ortiz Franklin. She is a former teacher, school psychologist, special education administrator, and school principal. She is the co-founder of The Watts of Power Foundation, which focuses on the recruitment, training, placement, and housing of young Black men who are interested in becoming teachers in Los Angeles.
DeWayne Davis: Davis has worked as a teacher, program coordinator, and administrator in Los Angeles schools. He’s also held leadership positions in Chicago-area and Portland schools. Davis describes his current role as an education strategist who consults with school organizations around finance, instruction, and operations.
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Board District 3
Voters elected Scott Schmerelson to represent the district in 2014 and again in 2020. The former teacher and principal faces four challengers for this district that represents a wide swath of the San Fernando Valley.
You can read more about the job expected of whoever ultimately becomes a board member here. And you can read more about the Board District 3 race here.
About the candidates
Dan Chang: Chang is a math teacher at James Madison Middle School in North Hollywood. Chang previously founded organizations that raised money for LAUSD programs and school board candidates. Chang’s first education-related job was at a charter school management organization and he currently leads the board of directors for Valley Charter Schools, which includes an elementary and a middle school in the San Fernando Valley.
Elizabeth Badger: Badger is the founder and CEO of Minority Outreach Committee, a nonpartisan organization that aims to promote economic, social, and educational investment in historically marginalized communities. Badger also ran unsuccessfully for school board in 2020 and 2015 and is the parent of children with autism and ADHD.
Andreas Farmakalidis: Farmakalidis is a professional musician and owner of California MusicBox, a music school and studio in Northridge. He’s an immigrant from Cyprus and he’s composed pieces for several motion pictures.
Raquel Villalta: Villalta is a National Board Certified Teacher, a top professional certification given to K-12 educators. Villalta says she opposed the COVID-19 vaccine mandate on religious grounds, and was placed on unpaid leave by LAUSD.
Scott Schmerelson: Schmerelson is a member of the Los Angeles Unified School Board and its current vice president. He has represented Board District 3 since 2014 and is a former Spanish teacher and principal. Schmerelson won reelection in 2020 despite the California Charter Schools Association spending more than $6.3 million to unseat him.
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Board District 5
Jackie Goldberg emerged from semi-retirement in 2019 to return to LAUSD’s board and Goldberg announced she would retire — for real this time — in 2024. Owing to a ... curious ... layout, this district cuts through a wide variety of neighborhoods. The local chapter of a union representing some school support staff retracted its endorsement of candidate Graciela Ortiz after a civil lawsuit filed in January alleged Ortiz is liable for the the sexual assault of a minor by another campaign worker in 2020 and 2021.
You can read more about the job expected of whoever ultimately becomes a board member here. And you can read more about the Board District 5 race here.
About the candidates
Fidencio Joel Gallardo: Gallardo was elected to the Bell City Council in 2015 and is now mayor of Bell. Gallardo is the educational innovation deputy to Goldberg; she has endorsed him to succeed her. He has been a teacher in Los Angeles since 1989, and has also been an adjunct professor at California State University, Los Angeles since 1999.
Karla Griego: Griego has been an educator in Los Angeles Unified School District for almost two decades and most recently taught special education. Griego has also held leadership positions in United Teacher Los Angeles, the union representing more than 37,000 LAUSD educators. She is the parent of an LAUSD high school student.
Victorio R. Gutierrez: Victorio Gutierrez taught for 30 years, and has also been a school dean and principal. Gutierrez wrote on his campaign website that he is not accepting campaign donations or endorsements to be “completely independent.”
Graciela "Grace" Ortiz: Ortiz is a Huntington Park city council member and former mayor. Ortiz works as a counselor on an LAUSD team that tracks attendance and student engagement. Ortiz ran unsuccessfully in a special election for Board District 5 in 2019.
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Board District 7
Tanya Ortiz Franklin won her first term as a board member in 2020. She is running to retain her seat against Long Beach teacher and returning candidate Lydia Gutiérrez.
You can read more about the job expected of whoever ultimately becomes a board member here. And you can read more about the Board District 7 race here.
About the candidates
Lydia Gutiérrez: Gutiérrez is a Long Beach elementary school teacher and lifelong Harbor area resident. She served on Coastal San Pedro’s Neighborhood Council and previously ran for the LAUSD board 2020 and 2015 and has sought other seats in public office.
Tanya Ortiz Franklin: Voters elected Ortiz Franklin to represent Board District 7 in 2020. She’s a former Carson middle school teacher and administrator at Partnership for L.A. Schools, which operates district-run schools in LAUSD.
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Tracking your ballot
You can track the status of your ballot:
If your mail-in ballot is rejected for any reason (like a missing or mismatched signature), your county registrar must contact you to give you a chance to fix it. In Los Angeles County, the registrar will send you a notification by mail and you have until TK to reply and "cure" your ballot.
How we're covering this election
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Early voters and mail-in ballots have fundamentally reshaped how votes are counted and when election results are known.
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Our priority will be sharing outcomes and election calls only when they have been thoroughly checked and vetted. To that end, we will report when candidates concede and otherwise rely on NPR and The Associated Press for race calls. We will not report the calls or projections of other news outlets. You can find more on NPR and The AP's process for counting votes and calling races here, here and here.
