Richard Vladovic to serve again as L.A. school board president

The Los Angeles Board of Education selected Richard Vladovic on Tuesday for a second, one-year term as president.

The vote of the school board, which selects its president, was 5 to 1.

The president is selected annually by members of the school board and runs the meetings. Most of the duties are ceremonial, but the president chooses who serves on key subcommittees and sometimes can exert greater influence.

In the past, there’s been backroom intrigue and parliamentary maneuvering associated with the selection of the board president. Last year, L.A. schools Supt. John Deasy threatened, behind the scenes, to quit if Vladovic became president. He and his staff were unhappy with Vladovic’s outbursts of temper.

Deputy Supt. Jaime Aquino, who’d had run-ins with Vladovic, quit before the end of the year, but not apparently because of any new allegations of personal mistreatment. But Aquino did accuse the board of inappropriate micromanagement under Vladovic’s leadership.

Vladovic apologized for past behavior and was studiously courteous in public. Observers said he also tried to maintain that decorum in private in his new role.

For the most part, insider drama was absent at the Tuesday meeting, although Bennett Kayser interrupted Deasy in his rush to nominate Vladovic before another nominee could be put forward. Then, Steve Zimmer quickly suggested choosing Vladovic by acclamation, but that idea was not taken up.

Besides getting his own vote, support for Vladovic, 69, came from Monica Garcia, Monica Ratliff, Zimmer and Kayser. Tamar Galatzan voted no without comment. The board’s seventh seat has been vacant since the December death of Marguerite Poindexter LaMotte.

Garcia had recently suggested holding off on selecting a board president until LaMotte’s replacement could be seated in August. That idea did not have majority support.

Vladovic made no major changes in committees. He appointed Zimmer as vice president. Ratliff will chair the curriculum committee.

Ratliff asked if she also could continue to review the district’s technology program. She had headed a high-profile temporary panel that examined the ongoing $1-billion-plus effort to provide every student with a computer. Vladovic suggested that she incorporate technology into the curriculum committee, which Ratliff said she would do.

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