The race for two seats on the Culver City Unified School District includes three teachers, two candidates who are running for the first time and one incumbent.
And then there is Gary Abrams.
An outspoken registered nurse who conducted the vast majority of his campaign online in 2007, Abrams is taking his second turn as a school board candidate after coming in seventh in a seven-person race four years ago.
The Carlson Park resident developed a reputation of being blunt, outspoken and unorthodox in his speaking manner and campaign style in his first run for elective office. In his now-recognized candid method of addressing what he feels are important topics, one of his campaign slogans reads as follows: “Politicians are like diapers… they need to be changed often and for the same reason.”
In the News’ fourth installment of candidate profiles of the contenders seeking two seats on the board of education, Abrams talked about what he sees as misguided approaches by some of the current officeholders and feels that his experiences as a classroom volunteer, as well as running a home care business, are what the school board needs.
Abrams said he will bring intelligence and common sense to the board, which he thinks was lacking on a variety of votes this year. He cites the firing and subsequent reinstatement of Academy of Visual and Performing Arts teacher Sheila Silver earlier this year as one example of poor board decisions, as well as what he feels is disrespectful behavior on the part of some elected officials to others, such as board member Steven Gourley calling Culver City Federation of Teachers President David Mielke a liar as unproductive and not indicative of how a school district’s elected body should conduct itself.
The registered nurse and entrepreneur says running a business and a school district are similar because both “need money to properly operate.
“A successful business has to have everything it needs to be successful,” he said during a recent interview at Veterans Park.
“Schools are like a business in the sense that they need things to produce a good product. And we’re making a defective product: uneducated children.”
While test scores are not the only measure of the viability of a school, state education officials cite the Academic Performance Index, or API, as an indicator of how well a California school is performing. The ratings span from 200 to 1,000, with 800 as the benchmark for academic progress. Two schools in Culver City scored higher than 900 for the 2010-2011 academic year.
Abrams feels that API scores are not the only barometers for measuring a school’s success. “My home school, Linwood Howe, was a [California] Distinguished School in 2007 and 08. [Editor’s note: Linwood Howe was selected as a Distinguished School in 1993. According to the State Department of Education, El Marino Language School was the only Culver City school chosen in 2008.]
In 2010, it was one of the worst performing schools in the entire state,” he asserted.
The elementary school’s API scores rose 29 points during the 2010-11 academic year, according to state records. In 2008, the year it was a state distinguished school, its API score was 802 before dropping five points to 797 in 2010. It was three points under the baseline for academic standards that year, and outscored a large number of schools throughout the state.
The candidate, who has a son at Culver City Middle School and has been a resident for more than 20 years, echoed a claim that fellow school board contender Robert Zirgulis has issued regarding consultants fees that CCUSD has accumulated, many of which both candidates feel are unnecessary. “They spend a lot of money and they put it in a lot of hidden places,” Abrams alleged.
Abrams believes his experience as a classroom volunteer is a good stepping-stone to the school board’s governing body because he has been able to see many of problems at some of the schools at ground level.
He received the Culver City Education Foundation’s/See’s Candies Volunteer of the Year in 2007 for Linwood Howe for excellence and dedication to education. The foundation said the criteria for each volunteer is decided at each school site.
Second-grade teacher Natalie Gualtieri has worked with Abrams and feels that he was deserving of the award. “I had both of his sons in my class and they are both fine young people. Gary gave a great deal of his time to help our classroom – helping with assignments, correcting and monitoring homework and chaperoning on every field trip,” the teacher said. “He deserved to get volunteer of the year at Linwood Howe, as he also helped the entire student body by volunteering for vision and dental screenings, as well as many other school-wide activities.”
“When I received the award, I was surprised,” Abrams recalled. “I didn’t realize that anyone recognized me.”
In the 2007 election, Abrams joined his fellow outsider Zirgulis in issuing claims about Culver City being run by political “families” and “machines,” and implying that their efforts to win seats on the school board were jeopardized by being independent candidates.
A year after the election, on Dec. 11, 2010, Abrams wrote the following online at Curve Wire:
“In Culver City there are basically two power player families. They are not on par with the Mafia, but they wield considerable influence on who is selected in the local elections,” he wrote. “Only about 10% of the population votes, these two families control about 9% of the votes. Power shifts between 5% and 4% to each family.”
On Aug. 15 in 2009 in WordPress, he wrote in an opinion piece entitled “Characterizing Culver City politics: Selfishness – Ignorance – Greed – Stupidity.
“Politicians control the Culver City print newspapers. See no evil, hear no evil, write no evil,” he wrote.
He continues – like Zirgulis – to believe the elections are heavily influenced by political “families,” although he said during the interview that he has “softened” his opinions about how newspapers are controlled.
Asked why he is running for office again if the deck is stacked against candidates who are not members of or friendly with the politically influential, Abrams responded, “I want the information to get out about what the school board is doing. This is my forum for informing the public about what’s really going on in the school district.”
Abrams doesn’t have a firm policy on charter schools, although he says he has noticed that they have had some success in the Los Angeles Unified School District.
“I think they might take away a lot of the students, and that’s what [the school district] is afraid of, because of the money [average daily allowance funds per pupil that schools receive]. But if you have a superior product, why would you go anywhere else?” he asked.
“We should be concentrating on making our schools superior, then we won’t have to worry about [charters].”
Abrams feels that while there are good charter organizations and others that are not very good, competition has the potential to make Culver City’s schools even better.
The school volunteer has not solicited donations, and he acknowledges that turning out new voters and those who are disenchanted with the current board is one of his only chances to pull of an election night upset.
Despite what happens on election night, Abrams says he will not pursue a seat on the CCUSD school board again. “I’m not going to waste time on people who want to stay ignorant,” he said.
He mentioned that board member Patricia Siever was not a favorite of the “families,” yet she defeated two better-known candidates four years ago, citing her win as proof that sometimes someone other than one of the “families’” candidates can prevail. “The board needs someone who is not afraid to speak to the issues,” the school board candidate concluded. “That’s why I’m doing this.”
Abrams has a website at smartvoters.com, where he said he hopes to generate support for his candidacy.
The election is Nov. 8.