Tanya Ortiz Franklin

Tanya Ortiz Franklin is a member of the Los Angeles Unified School District in California, representing District 7. She assumed office on December 14, 2020. Her current term ends on December 8, 2028.

Ortiz Franklin won re-election to the Los Angeles Unified School District to represent District 7 in California outright in the primary on March 5, 2024, after the general election was canceled.

Biography

Tanya Ortiz Franklin was born in Harbor City, California. She earned a bachelor's degree from Columbia University in 2005 and a law degree from the UCLA School of Law in 2013. Ortiz Franklin’s career experience includes working as a middle school teacher, a teacher educator, and a lawyer and advocate for equitable education policies and practices.^[1]

Elections

2024

Nonpartisan primary election

Nonpartisan primary for Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education District 7

Incumbent Tanya Ortiz Franklin won election outright against Lydia A. Gutiérrez in the primary for Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education District 7 on March 5, 2024.

	Candidate	%	Votes
✔	Tanya Ortiz Franklin (Nonpartisan)	55.9	34,380
	Lydia A. Gutiérrez (Nonpartisan)	44.1	27,112

	Incumbents are bolded and underlined. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 61,492
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
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Endorsements

Ballotpedia did not identify endorsements for Ortiz Franklin in this election.

2020

General election

General election for Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education District 7

Tanya Ortiz Franklin defeated Patricia Castellanos in the general election for Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education District 7 on November 3, 2020.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔		Tanya Ortiz Franklin (Nonpartisan)	57.3	110,413
	Submit photo	Patricia Castellanos (Nonpartisan)	42.7	82,208

	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 192,621
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
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Nonpartisan primary election

Nonpartisan primary for Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education District 7

Patricia Castellanos and Tanya Ortiz Franklin defeated Lydia A. Gutiérrez, Mike Lansing, and Silke Bradford in the primary for Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education District 7 on March 3, 2020.

		Candidate	%	Votes
✔	Submit photo	Patricia Castellanos (Nonpartisan)	27.3	22,812
✔		Tanya Ortiz Franklin (Nonpartisan)	23.9	19,956
		Lydia A. Gutiérrez (Nonpartisan)	20.0	16,684
	Submit photo	Mike Lansing (Nonpartisan)	20.0	16,673
	Submit photo	Silke Bradford (Nonpartisan)	8.8	7,364

	There were no incumbents in this race. The results have been certified. Source	Total votes: 83,489
= candidate completed the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection survey.
If you are a candidate and would like to tell readers and voters more about why they should vote for you, complete the Ballotpedia Candidate Connection Survey.
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Campaign themes

2024

Ballotpedia survey responses

Tanya Ortiz Franklin did not complete Ballotpedia's 2024 Candidate Connection survey.

2020

Tanya Ortiz Franklin completed Ballotpedia's Candidate Connection survey in 2020. The survey questions appear in bold and are followed by Ortiz Franklin's responses. Candidates are asked three required questions for this survey, but they may answer additional optional questions as well.

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Who are you? Tell us about yourself.

I'm Tanya Ortiz Franklin and I'm running for LA Unified Board District 7, where I was a student, a middle school teacher, and have been working with district schools my entire career. Like many LAUSD kids, I was raised by a single mom who immigrated, undocumented, from Mexico to the US because my grandpa saw hope in the educational and economic opportunity in the US. Years later, I became one of the many proof points of that hope as the first in our family to graduate from college at Columbia University, graduate school at Loyola Marymount and law school at UCLA. I'm running because every student - early childhood through adult education - deserves courageous leaders who will ensure each school has the resources needed to prepare every graduate to thrive in the college and career of their choice.

Please list below 3 key messages of your campaign. What are the main points you want voters to remember about your goals for your time in office?

College and Career: Together, we can increase college access and career preparation so that all students graduate prepared to persist in their chosen path.
Equitable Budget: We must responsible and equitable budget solutions that prioritize our highest-need communities so that all students and all schools get what they need to succeed.
Community Voice: I will elevate the voices of students, parents, educators and school staff so that important decisions are made by those closest to kids and classrooms.

What areas of public policy are you personally passionate about?

I'm passionate about educational equity - which for me, means that every student and every school gets what they need to succeed. I believe different communities have different needs and that the expert decision-makers are those closest to kids and classrooms - our educators, parents, and community members. And in an economy that increasingly requires a college degree, our school district's number one responsibility is to ensure that every student graduates prepared to thrive in the college and career of their choice. We need a budget that is adequate, equitable and responsible; we need to listen to community voice; and we need to support each student at each school so that our shared future in Los Angeles is in good hands with LA Unified graduates.

What characteristics or principles are most important for an elected official?

A school board member needs to prioritize listening to the communities they serve and visiting schools to understand policy implementation and the unique needs of each school community.

What legacy would you like to leave?

I graduated LA Unified alongside less than half of my incoming freshman class. Nearly 20 years later, graduation rates have thankfully doubled but still only half of LA Unified graduates are eligible for four-year colleges and universities. I have dedicated my entire career to educational equity in LAUSD and will continue to do so until all students have the opportunity to thrive in the college and career of their choice because LAUSD has so thoroughly and holistically prepared them.

What was your very first job? How long did you have it?

My first job was at a store at 16 years old, but my first job after college was a middle school teacher in LA Unified at Stephen White Middle School, where I taught sixth grade English and History for five years, when I was a part of a district-wide lay-off from the great recession. As an LAUSD teacher in Carson, I challenged my sixth grade students to be and to see the best versions of themselves, setting goals and monitoring their own academic growth, completing college personal statements, and visiting museums to explore and learn outside our classroom walls. I also became a Professional Learning Community Facilitator for a group of sixth grade humanities teachers and was able to share lesson plans, formative assessments, and best practices to improve teaching and learning across Los Angeles.

What is your favorite book? Why?

Bryan Stevenson's "Just Mercy" (also recently produced on film) is my favorite book because it inspires me - and many others - to always stand up for human dignity and what is right, even when it would be easier to let the system carry on with the status quo.

What is the primary job of a school board member in your view?

School board members are primarily responsible for hiring the superintendent, approving the budget, and elevating the voice and needs of the communities they serve. In LA Unified, school board members also often write and pass local policy - through resolutions - that direct the superintendent to take a course of action or support or oppose various local, state or national initiatives. In my view, the most important job of a school board member is to listen to the students, educators, parents, and community members they serve to ensure board decisions are made with those who are most impacted. Board members should visit schools, observe instruction and staff professional development, and talk to all stakeholders to continually deepen their understanding of policy implementation, impacts on student outcomes, and community needs in order to remove barriers and elevate best practices so all students are holistically prepared to thrive in the college and career of their choice.

What issues get in the way of quality education? How would you address these obstacles?

From my experience as a classroom teacher, teacher educator, lawyer and advocate in LAUSD, the biggest barriers to quality education are inadequate and inequitable resources to meet the needs of all learners and all schools.

To ensure our budget more accurately reflects our values, I believe we must aggressively seek additional local, state, federal, and philanthropic funding in collaboration with government, business and community partners, starting with passing the Schools and Communities First ballot initiative; allocate all $1 billion Local Control Funding Formula (LCFF) supplemental and concentration funds through the Student Equity Needs Index (SENI) which ranks schools based on holistic student need; and consider all options for stabilizing the budget, including district real estate options, creative campus configurations, and benefit choices for new employees.

Quality education in LA Unified would also be strengthened with: high-quality, green-lit curriculum, appropriate class size, and inclusive practices to support all students to meet the rigor of the standards; access to social-emotional learning, restorative justice and the arts to help students develop the skills to be creative problem-solvers in life; and more time and support for teachers to learn, plan, reflect and grow to strengthen their pedagogy, innovation and differentiation to meet the needs of all learners.

What principles drive your policies for safety in schools?

As an educator and a lawyer who has worked in LA Unified schools for nearly 15 years, I understand safety to be holistic - physical, intellectual and emotional. From my experience, students, staff, parents, and community members are more likely to feel safe when they have trusting relationships with each other. I practice restorative justice, which is an approach to build, strengthen, and - when harm occurs, including institutional and historical harm - repair relationships, as the foundation for holistic safety. I believe every person, inclusive of all identities and in all spaces in and around school, deserves to be free from harm against their body, mind and spirit. Students should be treated as students - never as "criminals" - and should not lose learning time for random metal detector wanding, which is a shameful LAUSD practice that is thankfully ending this year. When emergencies arise, school staff and students should absolutely be prepared, and yet the preparation itself and the experience in actual emergencies should be trauma-sensitive. Finally, I believe school board members and district staff should continuously ask and observe what safety looks like, sounds like and feels like to the communities we serve.

Note: Ballotpedia reserves the right to edit Candidate Connection survey responses. Any edits made by Ballotpedia will be clearly marked with [brackets] for the public. If the candidate disagrees with an edit, he or she may request the full removal of the survey response from Ballotpedia.org. Ballotpedia does not edit or correct typographical errors unless the candidate's campaign requests it.

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Candidate

Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education District 7

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Footnotes

↑ ’’Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on February 4, 2020’’

[bio-1] ’’Information submitted to Ballotpedia through the Candidate Connection survey on February 4, 2020’’

[1]

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Tanya Ortiz Franklin

Contents

Biography

Elections

2024

Nonpartisan primary election

Nonpartisan primary for Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education District 7

Endorsements

2020

General election

General election for Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education District 7

Nonpartisan primary election

Nonpartisan primary for Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education District 7

Campaign themes

2024

Ballotpedia survey responses

2020

See also

External links

Footnotes

Information about voting

2025 Elections

2026 Elections

2024 Election analysis

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Public Policy

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