PEPAC Organizational Charts

Power Point decks from yesterday's Local District CEAC (Compensatory Education (Title 1) Advisory Committee) fell off a truck and I found them on the sidewalk. I'm so happy to finally see organization charts from the district regarding the committees, but they were badly drawn. I reordered them in a more logical way - which I'll comment on as we review the structure.

In both charts the bottom level references committees at school sites. The middle level references local district committees - previously 8, now 4+1 - the one representing charter school franchises. The top level represents central district committees. PEPAC  answers to Maria Casillas, who answers to Jaime Aquino, who answers to Superintendent Dr. John Deasy who answers to the Board of Education that Mayor Villaraigosa bought. By reducing the number of districts,  the mayor and superintendent are able to cut out the last independent voices. The superintendent then "answers to" the board members that the mayor handpicked.

These two organization charts are supposed to represent the PARENT voices at LAUSD.

This is the "LAUSD Advisory Committee Reorganization - Former Structure"

In the LAUSD's version the Parent Collaborative (PC) was far to the left - swapped with the District Advisory Committee (DAC) box, making the path from CEAC (bottom) to LDCEAC (middle) to DAC (top) look circuitous and inefficient. It was, however, a straight and direct relationship - like the one to the far right - ELAC to LDELAC to DELAC.

This is the "LAUSD Advisory Committee Reorganization - 2011-2012 Structure"

LAUSD's organization chart had the PEPAC box (center), over to the left - making it look like there are two equal committee paths - one or ELAC-LDELAC-DELAC, and one for CEAC-LDPEAC-PEPAC. But you can tell from the text in the PEPAC box that DELAC subordinates to PEPAC.

In the original format the 2011-2012 structure nearly mirrors the "former structure" making it look as if the system was not changed much. In truth, PEPAC has become - hierarchically - the top committee to which all other committees (except SSC) answer to.

I don't know how work from LDPEAC and LDELAC can be reviewed and acted on by PEPAC, when PEPAC only meets 4 times a year - that's the district's idea of "streamlining."

DELAC used to be equal to the DAC - now it answers to PEPAC.

PEPAC was originally parents, community members and community based organizations (corporations). That being said, I don't know why it's called PARENTS as Equal Partners - unless they want you to think that parents have the same power in this organization that they did in the District Advisory Committee. They don't.

The District Advisory Committee had its faults - but nothing that couldn't have been cleaned up with training and empowering parents from below. Instead, LAUSD disempowered parents from above. They don't "get" parents - they don't like parents - and they do NOT want to work with parents. They'll take the money, though, thank you very much.