Demand to Serve Out Term Creates Stir at Forum of School Candidates

The seven candidates running to represent the West San Fernando Valley on the Los Angeles school board were cool and well-rehearsed Tuesday night as they recited campaign promises to be tough on drug pushers, improve learning conditions and put day-care centers in schools.

But one candidate’s demand that her opponents sign a “commitment to stay and serve” created a touch of tension at the campaign’s second gathering of all the candidates, held at Taft High School in Woodland Hills.

“The Board of Education has become a revolving door for higher office,” Betty Blake, a Valley PTA activist who is running for the board, said. “This shouldn’t be thought of as a launching pad for higher office.”

Blake asked all the candidates to join her in signing a pledge to serve the entire four-year term.

Blake told the audience that “fully two-thirds of the school board members elected in 1975, 1977 and 1979 have either been elected to or attempted to gain higher political office.” And she noted that two others in the race, education researcher David Armor and businessman Claude Parrish, both ran unsuccessfully for Congress.

By the end of the meeting, all candidates except Parrish had signed the pledge.

Parrish said that, in fact, he wanted to serve two full terms on the board. But, when Blake asked him why he would not sign the pledge, he answered with a curt “no comment.”

The candidates spent most of the evening comparing their credentials and policies before an audience of about 60.

Carie Vacar, a former Los Angeles school teacher, said she would like to establish a committee to review the school district’s budget, which she said had been mismanaged at times. Carolyn Brent, another former teacher, said her “pie in the sky dream” is a child-care center at every elementary school.

Robert Worth, an insurance company training specialist, promised, “Pushers will be kicked off campus while misguided abusers will receive help.”

Elizabeth Ginsburg, a teacher at Chatsworth High School, said she wanted to improve the “abject conditions under which teachers teach and children learn.”

And Armor said he would like to see the grounds for immediate expulsion include “illegal gang activity and serious acts of vandalism.”

Although it was the first time all West Valley school board candidates had met face-to-face since February, none has been idle. Many touted their endorsements.

Featured on Claude Parrish’s campaign stationery are the names of former Los Angeles Mayor Sam Yorty; J. William “Bill” Orozco, a former member of the Los Angeles Community College Board of Trustees; tax crusader Howard Jarvis; and Richard Ferraro, a former member of the school board

Armor counts among his endorsers Rep. Bobbi Fiedler (R-Chatsworth), Los Angeles City Council member Hal Bernson and the Professional Educators Defense Fund, political arm of the Professional Educators of Los Angeles.

Blake has the backing of Rep. Howard Berman (D-Panorama City), who along with Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles) head the so-called “Berman-Waxman Machine,” which provides financial backing and manpower to candidates.