13 Meet Filing Deadline for 4 School Board Seats

Thirteen candidates met the filing deadline Tuesday to enter the races for four seats on the Los Angeles Board of Education.

Incumbents Barbara M. Boudreaux, Jeff Horton, George Kiriyama and David Tokofsky all are seeking reelection.

The races promise to be unusually competitive because Mayor Richard Riordan has endorsed four candidates and has pledged to help them raise campaign funds. The mayor is supporting challengers seeking to unseat Boudreaux, Horton and Kiriyama. He is supporting Tokofsky.

Riordan, who has made education a theme of his second term, has frequently criticized current board members as inadequate for the job. He hopes to craft a new majority that will better manage the giant Los Angeles Unified School District.

At stake in the April 6 primary is the majority of school board seats. They represent districts that stretch from the Northeast San Fernando Valley across the central city to the South Bay. A runoff, if necessary, would be held in June.

Candidates who had filed their nomination papers by the Tuesday deadline, and their stated occupations:

* District 1 (Crenshaw, South-Central): Boudreaux, incumbent; Moses Calhoun, teacher / mediator / author; Austin Dragon, employment recruiter; and Genethia Hayes, education activist.

* District 3 (Silver Lake, West Hollywood and portions of North Hollywood): Horton, former L.A. Unified teacher; Caprice Y. Young, mother / businesswoman; and David Smith, handyman.

* District 5 (Eastern San Fernando Valley, Northeast Los Angeles): Tokofsky, incumbent; Yolie Flores Aguilar, member of the Los Angeles County Board of Education; Violet Dewitt Staley, early childhood specialist.

* District 7 (Watts and South Bay): Kiriyama, incumbent; Earl Raymond High, pastor / mechanic; Mike Lansing, child development professional.

The challengers who are backed by Riordan are Hayes, Young and Lansing.

All the candidates must now obtain signatures of 500 registered voters to be placed on the ballot.

Board members, who serve four-year terms, are paid $24,000 annually. They oversee a $6.6-billion budget and the instruction of 697,000 students.