Your guide to the L.A. Unified Board of Education District 4 race: Nick Melvoin vs. Ankur Patel

Three seats — two contested — are on the June 2 primary ballot for the seven-member Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education.

The nation’s second-largest school system, with close to 400,000 students, faces evolving challenges and uncertainties that could alter the direction of the district for years.

In mid-April L.A. Unified officials barely averted a strike by agreeing to significant employee raises, rescinding about 200 layoffs and agreeing to hundreds of new hires of counselors, school psychologists and other student support staff. The contracts with three district unions, including teachers, will cost nearly $1.2 billion a year, and board members now must find a way to pay for them amid budget pressures.

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Voter guide to the 2026 California primary election

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May 1, 2026

Standardized test scores have trended upward since the nadir of the COVID-19 pandemic, recovering faster than the state average, but the pace remains too incremental for critics.

The future of L.A. schools Supt. Alberto Carvalho is uncertain. He’s on paid administrative leave following FBI raids of his San Pedro home and downtown office. At least part of the investigation centers on a failed chatbot project that was supposed to revolutionize and individualize education.

Carvalho said he’s done nothing wrong and would like to return to work. If he does not return — and cannot serve out his new four-year contract — board members would select a superintendent.

L.A. Unified also faces declining enrollment — which reduces state funding and increases pressure to save money by closing many campuses.

Heightened federal immigration enforcement also has affected enrollment and attendance while creating anxiety that spills over into the classroom. Officials responded by declaring L.A. Unified a sanctuary district — both for immigrants and for the LGBTQ+ community, which also has been a target of some conservative groups.

Carvalho’s central focus on improving test scores has led to increased tutoring, repeated diagnostic measures and phonics training. In addition, the district put a successful school bond on the ballot to continue renovations, worked to lower student absenteeism and emphasized greener campuses.

The board majority consists of candidates elected with the endorsement of the powerful teachers union — United Teachers Los Angeles. This election will not change that balance because five seats are held by union-friendly incumbents. But the outcome will determine whether UTLA can further strengthen its hand or whether other constituencies will gain a measure of power at the union’s expense.

UTLA is the most reliable funder of school board campaigns — and the union’s spending is not controlled by candidates.

Also exerting influence in recent elections is the district’s other largest union: Local 99 of Service Employees International Union. It represents some 30,000 bus drivers, teacher aides, custodians, gardeners, cafeteria workers and technical support staff. This union has yet to endorse candidates.

A potential but diminished source of election-funding firepower would be charter school advocates — who once routinely outspent the unions.
Retired businessman Bill Bloomfield — a charter school ally who makes his own calls about whom to support — has been a big spender in recent elections, typically as a counter to teachers-union-endorsed candidates. While his independent spending has not come close to previous levels, he spent $183,547 in a campaign on behalf of Melvoin as of early May.

The material below was assembled through reporting and surveys provided to candidates. Some responses are paraphrased for clarity or condensed for brevity.

Incumbent Nick Melvoin, 40, is seeking a third and final term on the Board of Education. After teaching briefly at Markham Middle School, Melvoin earned a law degree and took part in unsuccessful litigation to end the practice of laying off the least experienced teachers first. He is the director of Camp Harmony, a nonprofit, volunteer-run sleepaway camp that provides free, weeklong summer experiences for underprivileged children ages 7 to 12, hosting about 400 per season.

On the school board he successfully pushed for more accessible online public information, opening up available preschool space to middle-class families an on-campus student cellphone ban and, in April, a proposal to place new limits on student screentime.

Melvoin ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2024.

Ankur Patel, 40, is outreach director for Hindu University of America. He worked three years as a staffer for school board member Scott Schmerelson and five years as a district substitute teacher. He’s also taught English abroad and worked as an organizer for National Union of Healthcare Workers.

He faults board leadership for inconsistent academic outcomes, overreliance on social promotion, bureaucracy that consumes resources and lack of transparency and accountability.

He is a past unsuccessful candidate for the school board, city controller and the state Assembly.

District 4 covers much of the Westside, including Brentwood, Pacific Palisades, Bel-Air, West L.A., Westwood, Mar Vista, Playa Vista, Playa del Rey, Venice, Westchester, Hollywood Hills, Fairfax, Larchmont, Hancock Park and Windsor Square. The district also stretches north into the west San Fernando Valley, including Encino, Tarzana, Woodland Hills and Reseda.

Melvoin: “The board voted unanimously to renew Mr. Carvalho’s contract based on the significant improvements we have seen in student outcomes and the belief that stable leadership serves the interest of students ... My top priority continues to be ensuring stability and that the important work at the school level continues. Acting Supt. [Andrés E.] Chait has my full confidence in that pursuit pending further developments.”

Patel: Agrees with the decision to put Carvalho on administrative leave. As far as his performance, Carvalho “has been a visible leader who has brought national attention to the district. I have serious concerns about his leadership approach, particularly around governance, transparency and stakeholder trust. There has been a concerning consolidation of power within the superintendent’s office” and a “growing disconnect between district leadership and key stakeholders such as parents, educators, and school-site leaders. ... Decisions affecting core academic programs and district direction have not reflected the level of openness or public process that families and educators expect.”

In 2020, amid activists calling to defund police in the immediate wake of the killing of George Floyd, a narrow L.A. Unified board majority including Melvoin cut school police funding by 35%. Officers shifted entirely to neighborhood patrols, providing a short-term campus presence only during a security alert.

Recent budgets supported by Melvoin essentially have frozen or modestly reduced school police staffing levels. On his survey, he selected: “No funding should be eliminated” as best representing his position from several options.

Patel supports giving middle and high school communities the option to have an officer on campus at least part-time, a position advocated for by pro-school police parents. That position could require a larger police budget and likely the hiring of more officers.

Charter schools are privately operated public schools that compete for students with district-run campuses. Most charters are nonunion, but some of the largest individual charters and charter groups in L.A. Unified are unionized.

Melvoin has been the board’s most consistent supporter of charter schools, although like most members, he almost always follows the recommendation of the district’s charter school division regarding which charters to renew.

Charter advocates were among his biggest supporters when he unseated then-board President Steve Zimmer in 2017 in the most expensive school board race in U.S. history, with outside groups spending nearly $10 million.

Melvoin’s stated goal is to insure that all public schools in L.A. serve their students well and that charters and district-operated schools can co-exist beneficially.

Patel is not as fundamentally critical of charters as, for example, board incumbent Rocío Rivas in District 2, where she is running for reelection.

There are poor operators, he said, but also “community-generated charter schools that are rooted in their neighborhoods, operate transparently, follow district regulations, and serve students responsibly.”

But like Rivas, he too has reservations about charters sharing campuses with district-run schools. The arrangements sometimes have “harmed neighborhood schools, disrupting students and educators while creating the perception, and sometimes the reality, of biased decision-making,” Patel said. “The stability of existing school communities” is the “top priority.”

The largest L.A. Unified unions, UTLA and Local 99 of SEIU, are sitting out this race so far. The teachers union never has been a Melvoin ally but did not mount a challenge against him four years ago.

Melvoin does have some support from three unions with a smaller L.A. Unified footprint: California School Employees Assn. Los Angeles 500, Los Angeles/Orange Counties Building and Construction Trades Council, and Teamsters Local 572. Melvoin also has had a relatively strong private donor database.

Patel has some group and individual endorsements but none with the deep pockets he’d probably need to threaten Melvoin.

The major employee unions could alter the equation if they jump in on Patel’s behalf.