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Kurt's Statement on LA City View Channel 35

Dear Friends, Family, Students, Faculty, Business owners, and Taxpaying Citizens of Los Angeles,

I am very excited and humbled by my recent selection to serve as Principal of a brand new public elementary school that is currently under construction in the Los Angeles Unified School District, wherein I have proudly served thousands of students as a teacher and assistant principal for over ten years.

The school, tentatively titled "Central Region Elementary School #13," is scheduled to open this coming September, 2010, and will become the newest member of the family of schools in Los Angeles Unified School District's Local District 3.

The promotion to Principal presents me with a wonderful opportunity to work closely and collaboratively with a wonderfully talented and dedicated faculty and staff, parent and community stakeholder groups, Local District 3 and Central District Leadership, to open up and lead a new school to serve the students and families of the respective Pio Pico, Arlington Heights, and 24th Street School communities.

This opportunity to lead also requires great effort, thoughtful attention to detail, care, preparation, energy, and time.

Accordingly, after much reflection, and after consulting with many of my family and friends, I have decided not to become a candidate for the Los Angeles Community College District (LACCD) Board of Trustees in the coming March, 2011, election.

At this time, it is the right thing for me to postpone my own candidacy for elected office in order to devote 100% of my abilities and efforts to serve the students, faculty, staff, parents, and community in my new position as Principal of Central Region Elementary School #13 in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

This being said, I want to share some important information with you about the important campaign to reform our LACCD Board of Trustees.

I will actively support and campaign for candidates whose views I support in order to reform the current and poorly led LACCD Board of Trustees and their misplaced priorities (construction bonds over students' needs: low-cost fees and textbooks and available courses, to name just a few problems).

You might recall that in the March 2009 election, I ran head-to-head against an appointed incumbent named Miguel Santiago, a career political insider beholden to special interests, who underestimated the strength of my ideas for reform and an environmental curriculum, as well as my plan to bring back vocational education programs while working within existing budgets, establish partnerships and internships with businesses and the Sierra Club, end exorbitant textbook publisher contracts and high-priced student textbooks, and say NO MORE CONSTRUCTION BONDS WHILE COURSES ARE BEING CUT. Enough is enough.

You also might recall that during the 2009 campaign, I continued to work full-time as a school administrator and adhered willingly to policies set forth by the Los Angeles Unified School District's Office of Ethics, to ensure my compliance with campaign laws. I also spent only a few hundred dollars of my own money and yet I won nearly 45% of the vote. The LA Times endorsed me. So did well-respected Los Angeles County Supervisor Michael D. Antonovich, and other civic, education, and business leaders, and every day students and taxpayers throughout Los Angeles. I was not surprised to learn that the incumbent has recently hired a campaign consultant to help him in the 2011 election. He's already a typical, self-serving pol.

Keep in mind that the current LACCD Board of Trustees wields great power and they enjoy exercising their power at student and taxpayer expense. The current LACCD Board is comprised of people whose decisions have adversely impacted the quality and availability of public higher education. No group has been impacted more by the decisions of our current Board of Trustees than students, whose abilities to access a previously-affordable community college education, access previously available courses to help them transfer to four-year colleges and universities, and/or access a trade skills certificate that would allow them to enter into the job market, have been undermined by the current Board of Trustees' lack of vision and lack of courage. Instead of balancing budgets by controlling spending, the current Board of Trustees continue to ask students to pay more for fees and textbooks for fewer available courses and choices, and it continues to rely on taxpayers to foot the bill for more bond initiatives "in the name of the students." It's time to wise up and vote out the so-called wise ones!

The current Board of Trustees also wants to shift responsibility for its profligate and misguided spending priorities that have resulted in drastic cuts to community college education and lack of access for students.

Keep in mind that the majority on the LACCD Board are friends with the majority of City Council members, who are fiends with the Majority of the County Supervisors, who are friends with the majority of members of our State legislature. Regardless of party of affiliation, and both major political parties to to blame for their share of the problem, the fact remains that the current Board's friends in City Hall and Sacramento have spent our hard-earned taxpayer dollars so recklessly for so long that we have ended up with with huge deficits and cuts to...you got it, public education in K-12, community colleges, and our CSU/UC higher education systems!

It's like putting the fox in charge of hen house security!

Yes, the very people on the current Board of Trustees who claim to be "for the kids" are the very people whose friends are spending our state, cities, and school districts into budget deficits that result in further cuts to public education budgets and public health services. It's time to get rid of these incumbent LACCD Board of Trustee Members and their friends, now and forever.

This said, I will remain vigilant and actively engaged on behalf of our students, teachers and professors, families, business owners, and taxpaying citizens of Los Angeles, who need and deserve leaders who place the interests of people ahead of special interests.

Keep up the Fight!

With Respect and Gratitude,

Kurt S. Lowry