001Welcome. The time is now 10:02 on March 2nd, 2026. Welcome to this special meeting of the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education including closed session. I'm going to take roll. Ms. Newbill. Present. Dr. Rivas. Present. Mr. Melvoin. Here. Ms. Griego. Here. Ms. Gonez. Ms. Ortiz Franklin. >> Present. Board President Schmerelson. Present. Okay, we have a quorum. I will read through the purpose and authority for the meeting and then we will take public comment as to the two action items and the board will recess into closed session. Under tab one, personnel, government code section 54957, public employment, superintendent's evaluation and general superintendent of schools. I'll note both of these items refer specifically to the acting superintendent, Mr. Chaite. Tab two, conference with labor negotiators pursuant to government code section 54957.6. The negotiators Dr. Murphy
002and the employee organizations are Associated Administrators of Los Angeles, Teamsters 2010, California School Employees Association, Los Angeles County Building and Construction Trades Council, Los Angeles School Police Association, Los Angeles School Police Management Association, Service Employees International Union SEIU Local 99, Teamsters, United Teachers Los Angeles and district represented employees and contract management personnel. You have a statement? Mr. Chaite has a statement to make. Good morning, President, board members, colleagues, and members of our school community. I want to begin by expressing my deep respect for our extraordinary educators and employees. That respect comes from serving this community for nearly three decades as an educator, administrator, and leader. As acting superintendent, my top priority is to keep Los Angeles Unified steady and focused on our core mission. Educating, supporting, and caring for the students of Los Angeles. Our
003schools will remain places of safety, consistency, and opportunity. Teaching and learning will continue uninterrupted and our plans and priorities will move forward. We remain committed to academic excellence and student well-being. Our core values remain unchanged. I know transitions can create uncertainty, but our district is strong. We have dedicated leaders at every level and together we will ensure stability and continuity. During this time, I will focus on supporting our schools and keeping students at the center of every decision. Thank you for your partnership and dedication to the students and families that we serve. Thank you. Okay, right into public comment under tab one, we have uh five speakers. I'm going to call on the folks who listed themselves as being here in person first and then we'll transition to those who have listed themselves as speaking
004remotely. So, the first speaker is Monica Arrezola. Are you here, Monica? Okay, Ms. Arrezola is going to speak in Spanish. So, if you'd like to hear what she's saying in English, please put on these translation headsets that are being offered. Okay, so you're not Listos, gracias. Then after Ms. Arrezola will be Carol Landeverde. Okay, listos, gracias. Buenos días, mi nombre es Good morning, my name is Monica Arrezola and I am here to tell you that as a mother, I am not in favor that the union is asking more salary for the teachers. I don't think that they merit more salary because we have not had good academic achievement. 2% is not anything. We want more and if they can give more, then we'll see if they get an increase in salary. Right now it's not
005the moment to have salary increases because 3 years ago they had a salary increase and we have not seen results and as I say 2% is not anything because the students are not well doing well academically and they're not can't graduate with a D when they can do more than a D and we need to leave that aside from technology so that they can return again paper and pencil and let's have our children use their brain more. When there is more things on the computer, the students are not giving good results. Why? Because they are not using their brain as they should. With a paper and pencil that they moved their imagination and that they put the 100% the students are intelligent and we need to take advantage of that moment when they can give
006more than what the teachers are asking for and the teachers cannot have them do an easy job when they're not getting good results. So as a mother, I am against that there is a salary increase for teachers. This is not the time because they just got a salary increase and we have not seen results. When we have good results academically that they're doing well, I will be here as a mother to asking your support for teachers, but at this moment not. >> Thank you for your time. Carol Landaverde. Carol Landaverde, are you here? No? Okay, we'll go to the remote callers. First caller is Diana Guillen. Miss Guillen is going to speak in Spanish, so if you came in and do not yet have a translation headset, please put your hands up. Okay, Senora Guillen,
007estamos listos. Por favor, oprima estrella 36 para hablar. Senora Guillen. No escuchan? Si se escucha. Good morning. Good morning. Members of the board. With recess of Mr. Carballo, here comes censure. Every single time you want to listen to us even less and now you're just putting five public comments for every single one of the agenda items. It's very convenient for the union, especially for UTLA, and to put Mr. Tate. The union wants to control everything, the salary, curriculum, policies, parent committees, and they are suppressing authentic voice of the parents with paid groups like parents supporting teachers. That is not a parent group. It's a teacher support teachers group because it is led by a teacher. And also, Schools Beyond Screens, we have doubt doubts but in their press release they have declared that they are
008part of the teacher union. Even more so, it we need to mention Students Deserve where they use it to manipulate the students. And today, their other objective is to take away iReady and to get 16% more salary, but without any academic achievement from the students. We know that five of you right there, right now, are for the UTLA interest and that you seek to manipulate policy as always. And you don't care about the academics and even less student safety. Today was Kimberly. How many more, Ms. Gones? How many more, Ms. Griego? And how many, Ms. Tania? How many more, Ms. Rocío? Mr. Melvoin. And your school and Reseda is your school. So, how when will you stop to not put school police? Right now you sent a message where you said that the school police
009is reviewing schools. Wow, we want I we like that policy so that the uh police can be in every single high school and for them to stop these kinds of things that happening. We hope that you change and that it really hurt and that you go through the pain that Kimberly's mother is going through because you are only to apply those policy. We want you to be for the interest of the community. Thank you. All right, Maria Duran, you're signed up to speak remotely. Are you in the room? Maria Duran? Not here. And uh Norma Gonzalez, I see you're on the line. Norma Gonzalez, uh please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have 2 minutes to speak once you begin. Norma Gonzalez. Me escucha? Si, se escucha. Good morning. My name is Norma
010Gonzalez and I am here also to be against the benefits that you are giving right now. And it's the same thing that we have not seen adequate results for students and I am also very bothered and intrigued because there isn't a good training we have seen for administrators in general on special education. There is a topic that is very serious, a specific school on 92nd Street where the administrator is very racist against the Latino community and the student have a lot of incidents and she just says that I don't know what is happening. I think that she lives in the kingdom of Nevermore because she never knows what's going on. And so that is one of my nephews there and there was an incident this weekend and they don't know what how did they don't
011know how it happened. The student now is in a hospital and this person did not even make the attempt to call 911 because they said that it was not necessary. He had stopped bleeding and that it wasn't necessary. So um there's not safety within the own administration at the school. The training is lousy or it's I don't know, maybe they don't do it well. I don't know what's happening with the administrators that they don't train well. E- not even their own personnel. Unfortunately, our community is going to always suffer due to these people that are too well, that they don't have empathy for our community. And so right now with the uh legal absence from the superintendents and this new interim superintendent, well, really, we don't see any favorable change for our community. So, please
012pay attention for safety, but also train well, and as you say you train them because there is a lack of training, even if it sounds like a little bit convoluted, but there is lack of safety in a- in it all. Well, now I've move on uh move on to tab two. Let's see, Maria Luisa Palma, I see you're here. And then after Ms. Palma will be uh Juan Jose Magandi and then Isabel Gonzalez. So, come on up. You have 2 minutes to speak once you begin. I wish I did not know Kimberly Zavaleta's name. I wish I had never heard of it because if I had never heard of it, it would mean that she was alive and well today. Continued to be treasured by her parents and her family and her community. But yet
013here we are. And thank goodness, you've all hired an expert, Mr. Andres Chete. An expert on the safety issues in his role as director of operations previously. You gave him the seat. You gave him the title? So now what is he going to do? Are you going to let him do his job? Will you let school police come back to the campuses? Here are the signatures that we got for our petition through Reda Padres por la seguridad escolar to bring back school police. 5,600 signatures. You've been provided copies of them. These are our originals. I won't be giving these to you today. But this is what we have. We got these on paper. They're all crumbled up from many, many parents, many parts of the city. We bring We brought them to you, but have
014you listened? Mr. Tate, we have a long history working with him on these safety questions, but he didn't provide all the I-Star data we requested through a public records act request. The data we see here during the committees is conflicting data, which I've pointed out to him, never received a response. He likes to tell me los abogados won't let him respond. That's a quote. The secret uh committees, this a school safety task force, school climate task force committees. We still We have Zoom meetings. The public can't make comment through Zoom. No questions. We're just watching TV. So today on the agenda you have the superintendent's evaluation. Which ones? We have two superintendents right now, don't we? So who's going to take the responsibility? Every time we talk to any of you, everybody goes like this
015on school safety. Points to somebody else. That's the consistency here. Are you going to empower him to do his job? Which one of you is going to have the guts, the nerve to look at Kimberly's parents in the face and tell her correlation is not causation. That's what you have all told us here, that the fact that we have more incidents does not mean that it's due to the lack of school police. But this is what the community has said over and over again. Thank you. Thank you for your time. Juan Jose Magaña, I see you out there. Come on down. You'll have 2 minutes to speak when you begin. Uh Mr. Magaña is going to speak in Spanish, so if you'd like to hear what he's saying in English, please put your hands up
016and we'll get you these translation headsets. You'll have 2 minutes to speak once you begin, sir. Thank you. Good morning. There is a fable that says uh the king is dead, long live the king. And when there is a lion that falls or dies covering for other lions, they're thrown to the hyenas. And so today we are here where the hyenas are in mourning, right? We have named someone and we know him. And I will give you the recommendation you gave him, Mr. Two things you said. I can tell you how it was that I I was to preview what would happen in the agreement when you left this, Mr. The ones that you have been supporting as superintendent because it looks like you want to forget about him. And the first thing that I
017told you is that to review his closet to see what he has hidden because the attorney general will certainly look for it. And the same thing Mr. told me one time about the issue about the Cassandra syndrome. And I wrote something about what would happen. And listen, you I'm right and we're going to be right and we're going to name a interim superintendent, but I did not know that it was my friend, but be careful, be aware. You are surrounded by people that will throw you to the lions, too. And if we don't do anything, here comes the issue. What are we doing for the parents? What are we doing to improve education? What are we doing to improve safety? What are we doing so that we at this juncture, we are continuing living in
018that darkness that you agree in a black mask that you're the only one knows what you're negotiating. The uh are manipulative. And they will continue to impose this agenda because you are your you are their result. You don't respond to the workers or parents. You don't respond to the community. You respond to unions and the politicians that have placed you there because they give you money to finance your campaigns. And it is time that you do something about it or else this will be even worse. And I hope that you have a clean closet. Thank you for your time. Isabel Gonzalez. Come on down, Miss Gonzalez. Isabel Gonzalez. If she comes, come on down. You'll have 2 minutes to speak once you begin. Thank you. Bravo. Bravo. Unanimously 7-0, so that we can have the
019superintendent leave of absence with pay. And what's I'm surprised is that you are in all agreement. They're 7-0. But for student safety, no, you don't care about that. You don't care in agreeing on anything, not even voting for it. Here, a list so that you are able to have it on hand. Melanie Ramos. Melanie Ramos. 15-year-old died by a weapon of mass destruction, fentanyl, because we need to call it just that. Weapon of mass destruction. She died inside of her school, Bernstein, in September of 2022. A student was found dead inside of the pool in Miguel Contreras, very close to here. We don't know if he was suffering bullying or not because you hide the information and you hide the crimes. Jayleen Mejia, 16-year-old. She died due to uh injuries at Manual Arts in 2024.
020At schools Grant, student was shot and killed in front of the school in 2022 during June. Hollywood High School, a student 15-year-old student was stabbed in January 2025. The same thing in that school. Van Nuys in November 2023. South El Monte High School, March 2023. John Marshall High School, October 2023. Grant High School, September 2022nd and many more. I couldn't finish all today mentioning all of them. Recently, the death of Kimberly Zavaleta, 12-year-old due to bullying >> [gasps] >> injuries at Reseda Middle School. It is incredible how many more deaths do you need so that you return to school safety with school police at district schools at LA Unified. Stop being complicit. Stop student deaths. Stop of allowing weapons of mass destruction just like fentanyl in schools and stop of abuse of our students. Stop
021of destroying families. Stop truncate student lives. The safety of our student needs to be the Thank you for your time. >> priority just like you here. Please place our students first and then my question is, Mr. Chase, Thank you what will you do now? Comment that you're the comment was muted. Thank you for your time. The next speaker is Maria Daisy Ortiz. I see you're online with us, Ms. Ortiz. Please Please press star six to unmute yourself and you'll have two minutes to speak once you begin. Ms. Ortiz is Ms. Ortiz is going to speak in Spanish. So, if you need translation headset, please put your hands up. Good morning everyone. My name is Maria Daisy Ortiz. And really I come to say that of everything that is going on with the investigation of the
022actions of the superintendent for me all of you every single one of you should be investigated because you are uh helped and you're the ones that approved taking away money for programs that our students need. And you have allowed the corruption because you are corrupt yourselves. You do not listen to parents. Parents who come here on the contrary you are retaliate against us moving us away from the committees censored censoring censoring their voices because you do not want to hear what bothers you because you have a political agenda that is full of corruption. We are people that pay taxes, members of the community and the investigations and I will call all my representative to for every one of you to be investigated because you pay for positions as political favors, programs, books and everything related
023to technology. Let's not even go that far away. Don Daisy did the same thing a great robbery that you supported. Now Mr. Carballo fell but you are even more guilty because you approved it. You had lack transparency you because you do not want to move your political agenda. You that cover up crimes, safety academic achievement you just uh lying them. Now you put another person right there so that we are censored. You have an administrator that takes away parent voice and uh move them from the committees, altering the state guidelines that parents and members of the community cannot participate. Then you pay them as an administrator and does not have authorization as an academic administrator. That has to stop. All of you have to call. Thank you. That concludes public comment on the items on
024the agenda. The time is now 10:24 and the board is going to recess directly into closed session and we will come out and report any items if any reporting is required. Thank you so much. All right, welcome back. The time is now 2:17 on a March 2nd, 2026. The board is going to recess this closed session until March 10th at 9:00 a.m. Thank you very much. Have a good one.