Candidate for
Board Member; Los Angeles Unified School District; Division 4

Valerie Fields delivered on her campaign promises from 1997 and is willing to take controversial stands to improve student achievement and cut waste from the District.

--She spearheaded the renaissance of the arts in the Los Angeles Unified School District, putting the LAUSD in the vanguard of arts education in California. The board adopted a ten-year strategic plan which ensures that the arts - music, drama, dance and visual arts - will be taught to every Los Angeles Unified School District student, from kindergarten through grade 12.

--To encourage greater community participation, Fields authored a motion that requires the board to hold four of its regularly scheduled meetings per year in each major area of the Los Angeles Unified School District.

--She authored a motion to overhaul the District's legal department, making it more efficient and productive. Concerned with the large amount being spent on legal consultants, she appointed an ad hoc panel of prominent lawyers to assess the practice of hiring outside counsel. They confirmed her suspicions that the district could save millions of dollars by bringing specialized attorneys on staff in areas of demonstrated and repeated need. That is now happening.

--She insisted that consultants be evaluated before they are rehired. As a result, a similar committee of businesspeople evaluated the methods used to hire consultants, and helped develop policy on when to hire consultants and when to have the work completed within the district. They recommended ways to evaluate the quality of the work, the pricing of consultants, and how they should be paid. For the very first time, and because of Valerie FieldsŐ persistence, consultants are being evaluated before they are rehired.

--In reading expulsion reports, she decried the lack of early intervention to save children rather than expel them. As a result, the Board recently adopted an early academic and behavioral intervention plan intended to assist low performing children before they act out in later grades.

--Rather than keeping her eye on politics, Fields stood up for on what is best for the children of the Los Angeles Unified School District. She supported a radical change in the reading program, focusing instruction in literacy on explicit and systemic phonics, accompanied by professional development for all elementary school teachers.