LAUSD board member Scott Schmerelson is running for reelection against four other candidates in a race to represent West San Fernando Valley’s District 3.
District 3 includes nearly 20 San Fernando Valley communities, including Canoga Park, Porter Ranch, Northridge and Van Nuys.
The seven-member Board of Education oversees policy for Los Angeles Unified School District, the second-largest district in the nation, with about 429,000 students.
The election is Tuesday, March 5, though vote-by-mail ballots have already gone out.
Here’s a look at the candidates:
Elizabeth Badger
Badger has run for the board in the past after being frustrated by an effort to get well-suited special education classes for her eighth-grade son and fifth-grade daughter, both diagnosed with autism and ADHD, according to a 2015 piece at the nonprofit news site LA School Report.
She also ran unsuccessfully for an L.A. City Council seat in 2013, according to the same article.
Badger does not appear to have a campaign website and her X (formerly Twitter) account has not posted anything.since 2020. Her last post, though, was a link to a video on the LA CityView 35 Studios YouTube page where she discussed her candidacy for that election cycle.
In that video, Badger — who has lived in the San Fernando Valley for nearly three decades and has a bachelor’s degree from Cal State Northridge — said she’d want to invest in safety, students with special needs and early childhood education.
“Our children have failed,” she said in that video, “because we have in fact failed them.”
Dan Chang
Chang of Sherman Oaks, is a math teacher at LAUSD’s James Madison Middle School in North Hollywood, as well as a parent and education nonprofit leader.
He’s running to “be a new voice” for the schools, according to his campaign website.
His priorities are to cut “downtown bureaucracy,” which he says mires San Fernando Valley schools in too many regulations, according to his…
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