L.A. School Board Candidate Tanya Ortiz Franklin: Highest-Need Kids ‘Get the Short End of the Stick. We Can Do Better By Them.’

Tanya Ortiz Franklin is an educator and attorney who works for the Partnership for Los Angeles Schools, serving 18 of L.A. Unified’s highest-need schools. She taught English and history for five years at Stephen White middle school and now focuses on restorative justice, social emotional learning and teacher and principal coaching. She grew up in District 7, which runs from South L.A. to San Pedro, and graduated from Narbonne High, Columbia University and UCLA School of Law. She is running for the open seat to replace retiring Board President Richard Vladovic.

Speak UP: The entire education landscape has shifted since we interviewed you in February. Can you talk about the significance of the period we’re in right now?

Tanya: In crisis, there are opportunities. And that is both for the physical health pandemic and the racial justice uprising. In crises, people's deepest values come out, and you find what matters most to you and center it in your decision-making. So, as hard as it is for lots of families, this educational moment is a real opportunity to home in on what we care most about and figure out a way to make it happen for kids and families. For example, when the physical schools closed back in March, L.A. Unified was really clear that we are feeding everyone and we are going to try to get devices to everyone, and that for me was like, yes.

We’re now a few months in, and we’ve learned some lessons, and some things we haven’t. In some ways, there is still a desire to "go back to the way things were." I don’t think that is the right way to look at it. We evolve and change, and transformation is a good thing. We should be thinking about how to address not just the health issues, but also the racial injustice issues. That can happen through distance learning. As much as we might not think that this is the way that it happens best, it’s the way that it is happening now. So in a nutshell, it is an opportunity.

Speak UP: Are families at the Partnership schools where you worked all connected now and able to access their learning?  

Tanya: No, absolutely not. Families that had struggled already financially, they are still unable to access. It’s a beast of a project, honestly, to make sure that every kid has a working device. But connectivity is a whole other issue. Are all the kids learning or at least connecting to learning in the way that I would hope? We are not there yet.

Speak UP: There is also the issue of childcare for families juggling work, especially work outside the home, with young children. They can’t be there to help their kids. How are those families managing?

Tanya: Well at the Partnership, the Parent College outreach team spent time this summer calling about 1,000 families asking what got in the way of students’ learning. Devices and connectivity were upwards of 30%. The other thing parents revealed to us is [that] even more than parents, students were relying on their siblings to help them access learning. You can imagine the additional burden on older students, even upper elementary students helping their younger siblings at home.

Speak UP: It is really unfair. We did a survey that uncovered huge inequities in distance learning in the spring in terms of the amount of live instruction and the amount of teacher contact based on race, socioeconomics, English Learner and disability status. To what extent do you believe that inequity was a result of the agreement with UTLA that made live teaching optional?

Tanya: I think there was an intention that had some unintended consequences. The intention was, "Let us take care of our staff and make sure they are healthy and well and can meet all of the demands of this moment." And yet, months later into spring, we lost kids. We just straight [up] had no communication with [some] kids and families. Even now, you would assume that six months in we would have figured this out and had a clear plan. But classroom-to-classroom, things are really different. The agreement had some intentions of taking care of the adults, but had some hard consequences for kids.

Speak UP: In both the spring and fall agreements, parents didn’t have a seat at the table or any input. Should parents have a role in this process?

Tanya: Absolutely, and we have given lip service to it for a very long time. I definitely think that is an area of growth for our district. We have a culture in L.A. Unified of talking at or to parents or the public, not a real two-way communication where we are listening and incorporating feedback. We have a long way to go before it feels like a reciprocal relationship between families and district decision-makers.

Speak UP: Recently, the L.A. County Department of Public Health said schools can reopen for kids with disabilities and English Learners, but UTLA said, "no." They do not think it is safe. We know many kids with special needs did not receive services in the spring, and we know some are unable to access the help and the education they need through distance learning. Many kids are regressing. Do you think these high-needs kids should be allowed to return to campus voluntarily? And whom do you think we should be relying on to determine when it is safe?

Tanya: I believe the best decisions are made by those closest to kids in classrooms. I have talked to a lot of teachers who are willing to come on campus for small groups and, in particular, teachers who teach moderate to severely disabled students and English Language Learners. They are in those positions for lots of reasons, not the least of which is wanting to help students who need the adult support so much. This is where I think it gets tricky, the [union] leadership versus the individual members. 

Now, I realize that the role of the union is to protect their members, and this is a scary moment where things could feel voluntary in some respects, but certain teachers might be pressured into coming back to campus, which doesn’t feel fair for a union of over 30,000 members. I also understand that. But the district and UTLA both did surveys several months ago asking, what would it take for you to come back on campus? We missed an opportunity to identify the families and the educators who wanted to come back on campus and match them together for master scheduling. 

But if you ask those closest to kids and to classrooms, you can figure out ways to match students and teachers. We have to open up our minds to the realm of possibilities and ask the folks who are actually going to be asked to do the work. The whole premise of a restorative community, which is where my work has been for the last several years, is you involve those who are most impacted by the decisions in the decision-making process, and that is exactly what should be happening right now.

Speak UP: Employees' kids are returning to campuses in small groups for supervised distance-learning. Parents are asking why it’s considered safe to have supervised distance learning on campus but not for teachers to deliver instruction in small groups.

Tanya: Parents are right to be confused and to be asking questions about why it’s OK for some groups and not for others. What else is confusing is that we have a side letter for one labor partner but not for all of the labor partners. So administrators are on campus, plant managers are on campus, the administrative assistants.

Speak UP: Does it come down to the relative strength of the labor unions? Or is there an element of systemic racism and classism in the fact that a lot of the employees required to be on campus are lower-wage classified employees and people of color? 

Tanya: I think there is an element of that. We are seeing that with our students’ families. Our black, Latinx, low-income families are considered essential workers in large part because they can’t choose to not work. They need to put food on the dinner table, and that is true for some of our employees as well. These are the kinds of questions we should be grappling with, to say what kind of decision, what kind of process, what kind of preferencing or privileging is truly about racial justice in L.A. Unified?

Speak UP: There has been significant learning loss during campus closures. Do you think LAUSD is doing a good job addressing that?

Tanya: We need to do a much better job of making sure kids are getting the most out of every instructional minute. Teachers are doing a lot. It is like we are all new teachers again. We have to make more time for [teachers] to be in professional learning with each other, not listening to a recording from some consultant, but leaning on the expertise of their colleagues who are getting this right, who have had some experience over the years with technology and with curriculum adaptation. It is not the most attractive thing to want to spend money on, but I think professional development, observation, coaching and feedback is the way that learning happens for adults, and that is where we need to be investing more time and energy.

Speak UP: How do your qualifications for the job compare to that of your opponent?

Tanya: Educational equity in L.A. Unified is it for me. It’s where I have spent my entire career, where I will continue to spend my entire career. It’s my passion. Both of us grew up in District 7, but there is something really different about being a teacher and spending your day in schools that serve diverse communities from South L.A. to San Pedro, and [being] committed to bettering public education. My classroom perspective, my school transformation perspective, working alongside educators for 15 years, gives me that sort of lens of implementation where the policy that is made at the board, the budgeting decisions that are made at the board, really have to be thought through in terms of, how does this impact kids in classrooms? That is a lens that I have that I think is different from hers. 

I can see the diversity of student learning, of classroom-to-classroom, of school-to-school. Just having worked in schools for so long, I think that gives me a leg up.

Speak UP: How will you handle the impending budget crisis LAUSD faces?

Tanya: Honestly, I will be charged with making some hard budget decisions if elected to the board. In crisis, you have to prioritize and then make adjustments later when, hopefully, we pass Proposition 15. This year, we won’t see the kind of turmoil that we expect next year or the year after. We are definitely anticipating another recession on the scale of 2010, which is when I was laid off in the district. So we have to start thinking about how to do that and how to be equitable in that decision-making process by being inclusive and transparent and, yes, respect collective bargaining agreements, but also really prioritize our highest-need kids because they are obviously continuing to get the short end of the stick. We can do better by them.  

If we all take a step back and think, what is the purpose of public education? It is preparing all of our kids to thrive once they graduate in college, careers and life. If we can keep our eye on a shared mission, we could make really different strategic decisions about how we spend our dollars, how we make decisions, and who is in the room when we make those decisions. So as much as we are caught up in this moment, and we should be, in both the pandemic and the racial justice issues, we also have to step back and get clear about our goals and our strategies for achieving those goals and then constantly come back to that. That’s what you do in the classroom. You set big goals for the end of the year. You progress monitor to make sure your kids are getting there. And then you adjust your instruction or in the district’s case, your strategies and your investments, to make sure you are actually on track.  

Speak UP: The board has spent very little time talking about distance learning before school started, but it spent a tremendous amount of time making new rules related to the new AB 1505 law regulating charter schools. What do you think about those rules?

Tanya: When you heard what folks were saying, the edits they were offering and the partial votes happening, it was really clear that we were not ready for this. The value that surfaced in this interpreting of AB 1505 for L.A. Unified [was], how do we make it as hard as possible for charters to serve our children? I don’t know if that was intended, but that is the value that a lot of people heard and observed. I wonder if, when we get a new board, there will be a revisiting. 

When we have [school] choice in a diverse district like L.A., which we should have, we have to think, how do we provide those choices in a way that doesn’t demonize particular communities, that really centers children and the opportunities for learning? And focus on them instead of the adult politicking that has contributed to polarization. I love the diversity of L.A. Unified, as a kid and a teacher, biracial myself in a really mixed family, in a really mixed community. I think we should be celebrating diversity and innovation and choice and getting really clear about what our values are.

-- Speak UP reached out to all of the 2020 general election L.A. school board candidates requesting interviews before the Nov. 3 election. Tanya Ortiz Franklin responded, while her opponent Patricia Castellanos did not. Speak UP will co-host a meet and greet with Ortiz Franklin Thursday, Sept. 24 at 6 p.m. Both candidates were invited to participate, and Ortiz Franklin accepted the invitation. Speak UP has made no endorsement in this race.