Students Consider Candidate Choices for 6th District

The two candidates for the Los Angeles school board’s 6th district seat fielded questions Thursday from constituents who rarely show up at school board meetings--fourth-graders.

After the debate between incumbent Julie Korenstein, who represents the Los Angeles Board of Education’s only all-Valley district, and challenger Tom Riley, students at Knollwood Elementary School appeared as divided as their parents may be April 10. They will be asked to choose between a veteran who urges voters not to switch horses midstream and a newcomer who promises to ride in and save the schools.

Riley, whose Reseda company makes Bingo machines, accused the Los Angeles Unified School District and its seven-member board of squandering the district’s $8.9-billion budget on an unresponsive bureaucracy.

“Many children--the vast majority of children in Los Angeles Unified--have been robbed,” he said.

Korenstein, Riley told about 120 students, their teachers and a few parents, represents a faction of LAUSD that points fingers in every direction but its own.

“L.A. Unified is terrific at coming up with excuses for why things don’t get done,” he said.

In response, Korenstein ticked off accomplishments from her 14 years on the school board that ranged from putting air-conditioning in schools to bringing phonics back into reading lessons. Endorsed by the teachers union, she called the teachers’ recent pay raise an example of reform. Give me more time to do more work, Korenstein told the students.

“To have a new person--a novice--come on this board at this time would be a very big mistake,” she said, casting Riley as a puppet of Mayor Richard Riordan, whose deep pockets and connections are funding Riley’s campaign and two others.

Students seemed to agree that Korenstein deserved a fifth term. If the voting age were lowered to 9, Korenstein would best Riley 9 to 4 among a group of fourth-graders who talked about the hourlong forum afterward.

“Julie Korenstein, she’s been on the school board a lot of times, so I think she knows what to do,” said Rondie Latham Jr., who was taking notes for an essay on the debate.

Whitney Ukanis had another reason: “I like having girls on board,” she said.

Riley’s supporters liked him personally--Korenstein seemed “shy,” one student said--and the challenger’s backers thought he could bring better restrooms and playgrounds to their school.

Daisy Davis, a 9-year-old with a jump rope, had no problem with Riley’s resume.

“I think he should have a chance to run the school board,” she said. “When Julie Korenstein came in, she didn’t have any experience.”

Glossy pamphlets from both candidates went home in the students’ backpacks, with a chance to reach their parents, the voters. The 6th district includes Tarzana, Encino, Sherman Oaks, Van Nuys and Reseda and parts of Granada Hills, Sylmar and Sunland-Tujunga.