Public service has been a part of Scott Zeidman’s life since his teenage years. Beginning as a recreation leader for the Culver City Department of Human Services (now Parks and Recreation), later as a Little League baseball coach and now as the president of the Culver City Unified School District’s Board of Education, the native son in many ways has come full circle.
The school board president, who was educated in Culver City schools, returned home after law school to raise his family and in 2009, ran for public office for the first time. In his bid for a second four-year term on the school board, he has received endorsements from fellow board members, state and municipal officeholders, as well as the Culver City Chamber of Commerce and a variety of parents and teachers.
In the fifth and final installment of the News’ series of profiles on the contenders for two seats on the local school board, Zeidman talked about what he believes are some of the highlights of the last four years, some of the things that he would liked to have changed and why he is running for another four years.
Zeidman, the only incumbent in the race, says one of the reasons that he is seeking a second term in office is to continue an upward trend that the local schools have made over the last several years. “We’ve made great progress,” he began in an interview in his Redondo Beach office, where he is the vice president and general counsel of L.A. Slot Machine Co., Inc., a gaming machine provider. “Our schools are doing better today that they were four years ago.
“I have two kids in the school district, and I want to make the schools better for my kids, and if I do that I can make it better for every other kid in the district.”
The school board president’s name became synonymous with a parcel tax initiative four years ago that added $6 million over five years to the school district’s coffers at a time when school districts around the state were running budget deficits.
Known as Measure EE, Zeidman was one of the initiative’s architects and often the face and the voice of the ballot measure, which passed by nearly 75% of the vote in the 2009 election that brought Patricia Siever, Karlo Silbiger and Kathy Paspalis to the board.
The committee, which was co-chaired and anchored by Zeidman, built an ideologically diverse coalition that drew political adversaries together who advocated for the ballot measure.
“When you have people who are from different political points of view working together on an issue, that really sends a message to the public,” he told the News after Measure EE won.
Zeidman calls the passage of the parcel tax measure one of his biggest policy victories. “Without it, we’d be out $1.2 million every year,” he noted. “That translates as many as 18 teachers jobs, and it helped to keep our libraries open, among other things.”
Placing a limit on the number of students at the city’s middle and high schools at 500 students at each school is another initiative in which Zeidman takes a great deal of pride. “It took me three years to get the board to do that, and it’s important for so many reasons,” he said.
Preventing overcrowding and reducing the number of sixth- and ninth-grade inter-district permit students, which will allow most of the students in high school and middle school to have gone through the school system together are two reasons Zeidman listed for instituting the cap. “That’s very important for friend-base and support base,” Zeidman said.
Perhaps the most important reason for the enrollment limits is to reduce the reliance on funds from the Los Angeles Unified School District due to the fact that 20% of CCUSD’s students are permit students, Zeidman added.
“If LAUSD decides to stop issuing permits, which they’ve been threatening to do, then we could lose literally 10-15 % of our students the following year,” the board president noted. “If we’re getting $5,000 a kid, that would be a loss of just under $5 million, because we could lose 975 students. We’re not in any condition to lose that.”
The incumbent believes this action will “minimize the school district’s dependency” on inter-district permits.
Since his election four years ago, Zeidman has been one of the most accessible board members to his constituents, the public and the press alike, a welcome change from the prior board, which on rare occasions returned phone calls or press inquiries and was generally considered by many residents to be more aloof and disconnected with their constituents.
“Being accessible often allows you to see what you’re doing right and what you’re doing wrong,” he said. “To be successful in this position, you have to go to events, not only so that parents and residents can see you, but also to get feedback that could help you.”
One of his many endorsements comes from his board colleague Silbiger. “Scott and I don’t agree on everything, but there are a number of areas where we do agree,” Silbiger noted, pointing out that the two collaborated on the student enrollment cap and that he also supported Measure EE.
“I really admire Scott for two things: his visibility in the community at a variety of events and that he has always been open to hearing mine and other people’s ideas, and I really respect that.”
Asked if there were any votes or policies that he feels the board could have acted upon differently in the last four years, Zeidman cited a few.
“There were a couple of times that we’ve made decisions as a board I think, if we could do it again, we would change [them],” the board president acknowledged. “I think that we should have jumped on capital improvements a lot earlier, I think we should have put a cap on schools earlier, and I think that there was at least one personnel decision that I believe that the board would have liked to have the opportunity to revisit, but it’s gone.”
The incumbent said he has learned that no matter how much you want to accomplish, the time frame does not always work in one’s favor.
“When I ran for the board four years ago, I thought that I would be able to fix everything in four years and be done and I was wrong,” he admitted. “Nothing works that quickly on any board, especially on a school board.”
During the Sept. 27 board meeting, some who attended were dismayed that a no-bid contract on some of the capital improvements was approved. Zeidman noted that while the district policy allows school district Superintendent Patricia Jaffe to award the contract in that fashion, it could have been done by an open bid or a no bid.
Asked he if he would have liked to see an open bidding process, Zeidman responded, “In the future, we will not have a bid done in the manner that it was done this time.
“Although I’m happy with the results and the price on it, but with something that large, it’s important that we go to the public in the future,” he added.
While many teachers have thrown their support to Zeidman, the union is supporting challengers Laura Chardiet and Nancy Goldberg, two former Culver City teachers.
Culver City Federation of Teachers President David Mielke said having two educators on the board could balance what he feels has been a dearth of admiration for teachers by some of its current members who are involved in the legal profession.
“We’ve had a few years now with a ‘lawyer majority’ on the board and one of the things that we’ve seen is a lack of respect for teachers and for their union representatives,” the union president said. “Our system works best if the board sees employee groups as partners.
“If we can add Nancy and Laura to the board, we are convinced that we can develop a positive and collaborative employer-employee relationship that can only help our schools.”
The school board president disagrees with the union president’s characterization. “Does the fact that I have a legal background make me unqualified to work on a board of education?” Zeidman, a labor attorney, asked. “If that were the case, why are we better off now than we were four years ago?
“I would much rather be endorsed by individual teachers than by the teachers union.”
Zeidman says no matter what the results are on election day, he is proud of his accomplishments during his first term on the board and his service to the school district’s families.
“I’ve been at Farragut [Elementary School], the middle school and the high school. I’ve coached Little League. This is my city,” the incumbent concluded. “So to be able to help our district and to be able to help lead our district to make our schools better is a dream come true.”
Election day is Tuesday, Nov. 8.