Ethnic Minorities Now School Board Majority : Education: Panel’s second Latina, Victoria Castro, is inaugurated, along with two returning members.

Four blocks from the hoopla of the mayoral inauguration, another swearing-in ceremony unfolded Thursday as a Latina school principal took her seat on the Los Angeles Board of Education, bringing a majority of ethnic minorities to the helm of the city’s public school system.

Victoria Castro, representing part of East Los Angeles and five southeast cities, became the second Latina to serve on the board, joining Leticia Quezada, who won a second term as board president.

School board members Mark Slavkin, who represents portions of the Westside and the San Fernando Valley, and Julie Korenstein, whose district is entirely in the Valley, were also sworn in for their second and third terms, respectively.

Dozens of Castro supporters cheered as the former junior high school principal promised to “put aside our adult agenda and put our students first.”

“For many of us involved in the election of the second Latino to the Board of Education, this day is long overdue,” said Castro, who made school safety, greater parental involvement and higher student achievement her top goals on the board.

The other minority board members are Warren Furutani, who is Japanese-American, and Barbara Boudreaux, who is African-American. The 640,000-student Los Angeles Unified School District enrollment is 87% minority, including 64% who are Latinos.

In a ceremony highlighted by a rousing performance by Mariachi Olimpico from Belvedere Junior High School, newly installed board members spoke of their determination to change the course of the district, which has been buffeted by crisis during four years of unprecedented budget cuts and labor strife.

“We need to combat the myth of public school failure,” Slavkin said. “Those who talk that public schools are failing have never been inside one of our L.A. public schools, have never met the children. . . . They sit home and self-righteously insist that this system is failing.”

Korenstein, who received strong support from United Teachers-Los Angeles during her campaign, thanked teachers and other employees for accepting a 10% pay cut and “sacrificing their paychecks to save this district.”

Quezada was reelected board president on a 5-0 vote with one abstention. Boudreaux was absent.

The board leader said her goal is to have the system “be known as the district of change, as the district of accountability and as the district that demands higher student achievement.” She cited the Los Angeles Educational Alliance for Restructuring Now (LEARN) reform plan and a recent audit calling for an overhaul in central administration as the board’s blueprint.

Several school board members said they would like to see a change in Quezada’s leadership style. The president does not have veto power over issues, but speaks for the board.

While praising her efforts to navigate through heated teachers union negotiations, some board members said they want her to tone down her high profile and frequently outspoken positions of the last few months and clear the way for newly appointed Supt. Sid Thompson to serve as the district’s primary spokesman.

Furutani said that the role of the board president was much more significant during the last eight months because Thompson had been serving on an interim basis. “Now that we have a permanent superintendent, that dynamic changes.”

Korenstein abstained from the Quezada vote, saying that her Valley constituents find Quezada’s manner too stern and at times confrontational.