Opponent of Student Transfer Policy to Run for School Board

A woman who earlier this year organized parents to protest changes in the Los Angeles school district’s child-care permit program said Monday that she will challenge school board member Julie Korenstein in the April election.

Dauna Packer, 38, said she will run for public office for the first time in a bid to represent the west San Fernando Valley on the Los Angeles Unified School District’s Board of Trustees.

“I really feel that in a one-on-one basis that I could be more effective than Julie Korenstein,” said Packer, who has three children, two of them in Los Angeles schools.

Packer is president of Permit Parents of Los Angeles, a group that last summer filed a lawsuit and won a temporary injunction that forced the board to reconsider its policy restricting school transfer permits. The group maintained that the restrictions made it more difficult for parents in about 10 district schools to transfer their children closer to available child-care facilities.

The effect of the injunction was to delay implementation of the transfer policy until next fall. The school board in October voted to uphold its policy to deny or rescind transfers if the district found they would contribute to racial segregation in a school.

Packer is PTA president at Woodlake Elementary School, where two of her children attend classes. She said she is the co-owner of a promotional products company that sells buttons and other campaign supplies.

Barbara Romey, who lost to Korenstein in a bitter race in 1987, has begun soliciting funds to challenge Korenstein but has not formally entered the race.