SAN FERNANDO VALLEY, Calif. – Walking home from school, Susie Kheel’s first priority is her kids’ well-being.  It is the same priority she will take with her to the ballot box.

“I think the well-being of every child in our district is at stake," Kheel said.

Kheel has two boys at Colfax Charter Elementary and will be voting in the District three School Board election, a highly polarized race between incumbent Scott Schmerelson and his two challengers, Marilyn Koziatek and Elizabeth Bartels-Badger.

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A lot of money has been poured into the race from opposing special interest groups. Schmerelson has the backing of the teachers union. The United Teachers Los Angeles president Alex Caputo-Pearl calls him a “fierce advocate” for neighborhood schools, "be they affiliated charter or district schools instead of having an unregulated charter school industry siphoning money out of our neighborhood public schools.”

Koziatek, on the other hand, is the only candidate in the Los Angeles Unified School District board race endorsed by the California Charter School Association Advocates who said “her voice and perspective is what LAUSD needs at this critical time.” So far, the group has spent roughly $2.5 million on the race.

Jenny Hontz of the parent advocacy group Speak Up, says if you look solely at funding, this may seem like a battle between the teachers union and the charter school lobby.

“However there’s an entire group of people that are very affected by this race that don’t really fall into those two categories and that’s the students and their parents," Hontz said. "And right now we have no parents of LAUSD students on the LAUSD school board.”

Speak Up has not endorsed any particular candidate in this race, but they have been critical of Schmerelson’s investments and financial disclosures.

Hontz also points out that even if you do frame the race as district vs. charter, Koziatek has one foot on each side.  

“Her own kids are in an LAUSD school but she works for an independent charter," Hontz said, "So she doesn’t fit neatly into these categories.”

What has been particularly surprising, she says, is how polarizing the language has become.

“I mean this is school board," Hontz said, "But we do see a lot of rhetoric that is very heated.”

She points to a Facebook Live video from UTLA where Schmerelson attended a rally against co-location, where charter students were being described as invaders.  

Meanwhile a negative mailer targeting the incumbent has been criticized as being anti-Semitic. Kheel, who supports Schmerleson, called the ad disgusting.

“In none of the advertisements that have been sent to my house has a kid-centric flyer been addressed," Kheel said. "It’s all about hateful shameful tactics that really don’t have a place in a school board race.”

Or for that matter, she says, in politics in general.

Both sides see this election as pivotal for the balance of the seven-member school board.  A new law set to go into effect this summer will give local school boards more discretion to approve or deny applications for charter schools.