The Second District for Long Beach’s local school board is up for grabs during the statewide primary on March 5, with incumbent Erik Miller trying to win reelection against business owner Jerlene Tatum.
Miller, 39, has represented District 2 since December 2020 and has also been involved with numerous nonprofit organizations, including leading. USVETS Long Beach. Tatum, 47, is an administrative and data management consultant who owns Jerlene Cordova Strategies who advocated for the Black Student Achievement Initiative that the LBUSD Board of Education approved in 2021.
District 2 encompasses most of west and central Long Beach, including Garfield Elementary, Washington Middle and Poly High schools. The Long Beach Unified School District, as a whole, has 84 schools in Long Beach, Lakewood, Signal Hill and Avalon, according to LBUSD’s website. LBUSD also has a $1.3 billion operating budget for 2023-24.
Of the district’s more than 64,000 students, 59% are Hispanic and 12% are Black. And 60% are socioeconomically disadvantaged, according to LBUSD’s website.
Miller and Tatum both want to increase equity and community investment to improve the Long Beach Unified School District, though their approaches would differ.
Miller highlighted his priority to uphold LBUSD’s Excellence and Equity policy through its $1.7 billion bond aimed at funding infrastructure upgrades for LBUSD. Miller said, if reelected, he plans to be an active in helping facilitate communication between the district and the community during construction.
“It is important not just for LBUSD but our entire city to invest in our western side of the city (because) it has some of our most underachieving (and) most vulnerable campuses,” Miller said.
Supporting “them with all the tools and resources needed (for students) to perform,” he added, “will improve the education of all students throughout the district.”
With LBUSD historically having high enrollment rates of Black and Latino students across Long Beach, Miller said, he especially wants to prioritize investing those communities to close achievement gaps.
”This is a public form of confirmation to the city of Long Beach that we are highly invested in our students who are underperforming — which sadly — has been on Black students,” Miller said. “And we are going to use these board goals as a decision-making tool when it comes to resources, when it comes to budget decisions, when it comes to personnel decisions.”
The main concerns for Tatum, meanwhile, center around increasing the number counselors for high schools and improving safety on campuses.
As a parent herself, Tatum said there is a lack of parent advocacy and parent engagement within LBUSD. Her first order of business, if elected, would be cultivating a welcoming environment for parents and community stakeholders to engage with the district and uphold LBUSD’s long-term direction of the district’s Vision 2035.
Tatum, a founding member of the Long Beach Education Foundation, would also push for more academic counselors.
“I believe that there will be an increase in academic success for our students, because then the students will have someone to help guide them through the process, someone to communicate with their teacher, someone to communicate with the parents to bridge a gap,” Tatum said. “And right now, there is a lack of parent advocacy or parent engagement. And part of it is because parents just really don’t know.”
2024 presidential primary election
Election Day: March 5, 2024. Polls close at 8 p.m.
Early voting: You can currently vote at the Los Angeles County registrar’s office. The registrar’s headquarters are at 12400 Imperial Highway, Room 3002, in Norwalk. That office is open from 8 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday to Friday.
Vote-by-mail: Ballots began going out on Thursday, Feb. 1. You can submit VBMs in three ways: By mailing them to the registrar’s office (VBMs include return envelopes with the correct address and postage already included); by placing them in an official drop box; or by dropping them off at any county Vote Center.
VBM deadline: VBMs sent via mail must arrive no later than seven days after the election, but they must be postmarked by March 5. The deadline to place VBMs in a drop box or deliver them to a Vote Center is 8 p.m. on Election Day.
Vote Centers: Vote Centers open 10 days before Election Day. This year, that’s Saturday, Feb. 24. You can vote at any Vote Center in Los Angeles County. Prior to Election Day, the Vote Centers will be open from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. On Election Day, they will be open from 7 a.m. to 8 p.m.
About the ballots: In California, the order races are listed on ballots goes from local to federal, meaning the nominees for president will be listed at the bottom. Except for presidential races, California’s primaries for “partisan” offices – now known as “voter-nominated offices” have a top-two system. That means the top two vote getters in a given race advance to the general election, regardless of political party.
To find a drop box or Vote Center and for more information: lavote.gov.
LBUSD Board of Education District 2
Candidates: Incumebent Erik Miller and board member Jerlene Tatum
Term length: 4 years
District boundaries: Most of west and central Long Beach, including Garfield Elementary, Washington Middle and Poly High schools.
Key issues: Equity, community investment and infrastructure.
Information: lavote.gov.