GOP's hopes for the governor's race, Kelly Gonez and Nick Melvoin start their terms with LAUSD board, Nerdstrong's workouts focused on super hero pop culture.
Republicans prepare for California's gubernatorial race
California's 2018 gubernatorial race has Republicans searching for candidates to run for the position's primary.
A number of GOP candidates have announced that they will run for the position. The most recent to do so is former Republican Assemblyman David Hadley.
Kevin Faulconer, Mayor of San Diego, was expected to give the party a chance at winning the position. But Faulconer announced on Friday that he would not be entering the race after all.
Sean Walsh, a Republican strategist and partner at Wilson Walsh Consulting in San Francisco, joined Take Two's Libby Denkmann to discuss more.
San Diego Mayor Kevin Faulconer said he's not running for governor. House majority leader Kevin McCarty and state party chair Jim Brulte were reportedly lobbying for him to run. How big of a blow is Kevin Faulconer's decision?
"It's an expensive blow. California is very media-centric when you're running for office. It costs a lot of money to get not only your message, but your name ID out. So that's going to cost Republicans a lot more money to put a candidate forward.
I will tell you that I think the Republican Party under Jim Brulte's leadership has been very smart. They have relied on the Democrats legislature going a little bit too far, like the single-payer and the civil war that's broken out in Sacramento to send a message that we need some balance there, so I think Brulte's got a strategy to pick up seats regardless of how well the governor's race actually does."
To hear the full conversation, click the blue player above.
Meet LAUSD's new school board member Nick Melvoin
Nick Melvoin will be one of LAUSD's new school board members starting July 6.
His victory in the last election -- and that of fellow board member Kelly Gonez -- means that a a majority of board members have the backing the California Charter Schools Association.
Melvoin talked with KPCC education reporter Kyle Stokes about his vision for charter schools and his other priorities in office.
Interview highlights
Some have interpreted your victory as a win for school choice. Others are concerned about effects on local neighborhoods schools. What do you say to that?
One of things that the charter movement has done is let the benefits of choice inure to less affluent communities. As a progressive, I think that's a good thing.
The question is, now, how can we be thoughtful about that choice? And I think LA has not been thoughtful.
We've proliferated, but we haven't thought about why and how and where, and how to learn from charters.
But the danger of embracing school choice is that it could amplify segregation.
I've been an advocate of universal enrollment for a while.
Let's provide the same access to parents, and then let's build some safety valves into the system to make sure that it's not just the eager parents that are getting the options.
You've written about slowing the growth of charter schools by making district schools more attractive. You also say we shouldn't do anything to limit charter schools' growth. How do you mesh together what seems like a contradiction?
You have 40,000 parents on waitlists. Do you build a lot more schools to get parents off those waitlists, or do you improve our schools?
I'm confident that, in part by learning from the charter school sector, we can improve our schools to get that list down close to zero.
Until that day comes, charter options for families should be their right within the public school system.
And one of the conversations we're going to have to have with the charter sector is this whole myth of charter growth.
What is that "myth of charter growth"?
It's this idea that, now, with four members of the board endorsed by California Charter Schools Association, that all of a sudden there will be a massive charter expansion.
I don't support it.
It's really just infeasible when you consider restraints on facilities and supply of teachers.
Collective bargaining with major unions including United Teachers LA will begin soon. Those agreements are things you'll have to vote on. What are you hoping for?
I think we need to stop the bleeding.
By that I mean for new employees, we need to think more creatively about healthcare and retirement. Ironically, that could be a way to attract new teachers.
We see across sectors Millennials spending less time in any one job. And so they're really thinking about salaries, not defined benefits.
I actually think one thing that could help us financially is something like saying to new teachers, we're going to increase your salary but we're going to look at a 403(b) and we're going to look at one health care provider as opposed to five or six.
Not only do we cut costs, but we actually attract more people to the district.
At the last full meeting before your term, the board voted to renew the contract of Superintendent Michelle King. Should they have done that?
I don't think so, if only because we have a new board coming in. I think one of the tasks of the board is to oversee the performance of the superintendent.
When two of those members [,eamom didn't have access to some of the internal performance indicators, I thought that was a little disrespectful. And as responsible board members to our constituents in district 4 and 6, we have to make sure our superintendent is meeting performance goals and leading the district in the right direction.
Is she doing a good job?
Nobody to my knowledge – I know I wasn't – was talking about getting rid of her.
I think there are things where I've been impressed with her leadership on leading to the direction of universal enrollment, moving the district to central administrative cuts to put more money in classrooms. But to me, it's just a start.
I'd be eager to sit down with the board and with her to set our vision and then see how she executes it. But I have confidence that she will do a good job.
What's your to-do list starting from Day 1?
Some of the priorities of our office is going to be financial transparency, student achievement transparency, facilities transparency and making sure we're shining a light on what's happening in LAUSD.
A second one would be to really try and turn the heat down on the charter-district division, and see how we can work together on behalf of all kids.
A third piece is going to be more local control, and I'm interested in what some districts are doing about having non-profit boards sit over their local public schools as a way to really engage with the community.
Meet LAUSD's new school board member Kelly Gonez
Kelly Gonez is a former teacher and the incoming LAUSD school board member for District 6, which covers eastern San Fernando Valley.
Gonez's term begins July 6, and her win was cast as a victory by those who back charter schools.
In a sit-down interview with KPCC education reporter Kyle Stokes, Gonez addresses her commitment to charter schools and what's on her agenda for Day 1.
Interview highlights
During the campaign you had written to KPCC that, "I am concerned that many charter operators are finding the renewal or approval process to be much more negative than it has been in the past." Could people read that as your desire to relax standards for charter applications?
For me, I don't think that was the best choice of words. ...
I draw a distinction between oversight and meaningful accountability. The renewal process, but oversight generally, has not always been focused on students, so I've been concerned about that.
So I don't think it's about relaxing standards at all, but compliance does not equal accountability. Real accountability means that we are looking holistically at how schools are doing and then we provide supports so they can improve.
Some have read a lot into the four-vote majority of people on the board, including yourself, who have been supported by California Charter School Association. What if this is a signal to charter operators that they could find a more welcome environment for applications?
I'm not interested in a dramatic expansion or really any expansion, at all, in the number of independent charter schools in the district.
I understand why this narrative has picked up some steam, but I would urge people to dig a little bit deeper.
If you look at the many things that I have written, charter school expansion is not one of my stated priorities in my campaign.
What are your priorities when you take office?
The first is ensuring that every child who graduates from an LAUSD high school is graduating college and career ready.
The second priority for me is really supporting and empowering teachers and school leaders. I think that the district hasn't always done a great job with providing meaningful supports that help teachers grow and reach their full potential.
The last priority for me is really making sure that every decision the district makes has meaningful community input. I think that the district has made efforts to hear from the community and hear from families, but I believe a lot more work needs to be done to make sure that, not only are we getting the input, but we're using it meaningfully.
This school board election has been framed as a rejection of the status quo. But the status quo is that test scores are up, graduation rates are up and the district projects a budget surplus. So what wrong with the way things are?
It's really more about continuing and accelerating the progress we've been making.
It's absolutely true when you look at the district's graduation rates that there's been a significant increase, and we have to celebrate the progress that has been made.
For me, it's about how do we push to the next level and really fulfill the promises that the district is making...
I think that a 100 percent graduation should be the expectation, but we shouldn't accept that as the end-all be-all.
Just weeks before you take office, the school board voted to renew the contract of LAUSD Superintendent Michelle King. Should they have offered that extension?
Process-wise, it probably wasn't the most respectful move given that there's a new board that will be taking seat.
But substantively I don't disagree with them. I would have voted to extend Superintendent King's contract.
Volvo goes all electric
The race for electric vehicles is on.
Tesla’s Model 3 goes into production this week. And now Volvo, the Swedish auto maker, has announced its new cars will only be hybrids and full electrics starting in two years.
Volvo's first fully electric vehicle will be a compact SUV and will come on the market in 2019. It's the first of five planned electrics Volvo will bring to market between 2019 and 2021.
As existing cars in the Volvo lineup go through their usual update cycles, they too will be converted to hybrids and electrics. By 2025, it's likely Volvo will no longer produce any cars that run solely on fossil fuel.
Volvo's announcement comes at a time when gas prices are low, reducing sales of both hybrids and EVs. But the company is positioning itself for stricter emissions regulations in China as well as the European Union.
China will soon impose quotas for EV sales to force car companies to sell electric vehicles, and the EU will also require vehicles to emit one-third fewer carbon dioxide emissions in 2020 — a feat that can only be achieved through electrification.
Nerdstrong Gym helps you find your inner superhero
Andrew Deutch stands in front of his first group of the day. Everyone he’s speaking to is clad in a shirt that displays their pop-culture fandom; everything from Harry Potter to Power Rangers to Batman. But this group didn’t come at 6:30 a.m. on a Sunday to discuss the latest superhero movie; they came here to work out.
This is a typical day for Nerdstrong Gym in North Hollywood.
“It's about inclusion. It's about acceptance,” Deutch told KPCC. He founded this concept in 2013 with the goal of engaging people who have had a hard time regularly going to exercise.
“One of the paramount features of the gym is that most of the people that come into this space are self-identified nerds and geeks. They've always wanted to do fitness, but they just didn't feel that some place spoke to them.”
A quick look around the inside of Nerdstrong Gym shows that it’s not just another independent gym. Near the entrance, there’s a rug in the shape of a 20-sided die (known as a D20 to Dungeons and Dragons fans) laid out on the floor. There are bookshelves full of comic books and video games in the corner.
Deutch figures that by celebrating people’s pop-culture fandoms, he will be able to help them make working out a habit.
“We want them to get nerdy about fitness so we try to blend all those things together into hopefully a friendly space about fitness and what you love, whether it's comic books or movies or anything else,” Deutch said.
The ideals of Nerdstrong go beyond just the aesthetics of the gym and the dress code.
The biggest hook that solidifies his gym as nerd nirvana are the workouts themselves; they are all themed around a different pop culture.
“I like to sort of infuse the workout with gameplay elements that I believe work for fitness,” Deutch said. “It could be… Star Trek, it could be PC games, board games, tabletop games.”
Christy Black-Nett is a Nerdstrong trainer. She’s also responsible for putting together the routines. She monitors the slate of summer blockbusters, TV shows and video games, and decides which would make for the best workouts.
“We did a Star Wars workout for May 4th,” Black-Nett said. “We based it off of ‘The Force Awakens.’ We have a finisher where you have to take a five-to-ten pound weight and hold it out for two minutes awkwardly like you’re trying to be Rey getting Luke to accept the light saber that you brought to him.”
Deutch said it’s important for the themes to go beyond just taking a show and applying it to a series of moves.
“What moments in that movie or story or game really spoke to us? That's what I want to pull into the workout. It's fun for me, but it's also really fun for them,” Deutch said about the people who go to Nerdstrong. “I'm not yelling at them or barking at them, I'm just encouraging them along the way and they're encouraging themselves in that moment.”
Chrissy Dinh is an avid fan of Harry Potter. For today’s workout she’s wearing a shirt that shows off her house in Hogwarts.
“Slytherin house represent!” she proudly declared
She has been coming to Nerdstrong since 2014 when it was still a much smaller operation out of Deutch’s garage.
“This is the first time I've ever been committed to working out,” Dinh said.
What’s kept her coming back to Nerdstrong? She says it all goes back to the sense of camaraderie that she feels here yet doesn’t get from going to an LA Fitness.
“I feel like when you go to a box gym it's very individualized, whereas here it's very community driven," Dinh said.
Dinh thinks that community continues through the workout and beyond. “We all talk about whether you want to go to Comic Con or Hogwarts or one of your personal goals. Like, if we want to do a strict pull-up or lose ten pounds.”
Deutch said that sort of messaging is paramount to the philosophy of the gym. “I feel like this space really allows them to be who they are and because we speak their language.”
Speaking that language includes making the gym into a haven of all things geek. The nerd-factor even extends to the exercise equipment.
“We bring in things like maces, swords, weapons.” Deutch said.
The weapons aren’t real, but they are heavy. Deutch said that he likes to bring all sorts of unconventional items into Nerdstrong to keep things in this space fresh. “We can kind of grab from wherever and pull that into the gym.”
For people like Bret Parmenter, that sort of attitude is the perfect marriage of his two loves.
“I've always been a strong man, but I've also been a nerd for most of my life,” Parmenter said. “I’ve always felt like those are two things that could never go together, [but Nerdstrong] was a perfect fit from the get-go.”
The idea of using swords to slay dragons or running with sandbags around your neck to emulate supervillains makes Nerdstrong sound more like a giant role-playing game rather than a gym. But Dafana Plavan, insists that the nerds here are working as hard as anyone else.
“I hear from people all the time. ‘What do you do? Do you pretend you're a knight? With armor?’ No, we just sweat and complain a lot!” Plavan said. “It looks cool on the board, but at the end of the day you're still doing push-ups.”
While Nerdstrong has grown rapidly, it’s still a modest operation. But Deutch has heard a lot of demands from others who want to open Nerdstrongs around the country.
“Every time we go to a Comic-Con or a WonderCon and have our panels, one question we get is, ‘When is it coming to my town?’” Deutch said.
While Deutch isn’t sure that they have the means to expand rapidly enough to meet those demands, he does understand why this idea has caught on.
“I just know that I think it speaks to some people internally that they want to love, they want to wear whatever they want to wear. They want to wear the superhero shirts and don't want to be judged for it.”
But until the team does decide to move forward, Nerdstrong will live on in North Hollywood, like a bat signal calling for people to put their nerd freak flag out on display.
“If your freak flag has comics and movies and video games and whatever on it, please unfurl that flag,” Deutch said. “Let it fly.”
To listen to the full segment, click the blue play button above.