
“Just turn around for a moment, Triston, and see all these faces. Look at these people who are here for you tonight.” When Second District Supervisor Holly J. Mitchell came up to the stage to officiate the oath of office for CCUSD School Board President Triston Ezidore, she had him look at the room, the very crowded room, full of people there to celebrate the occasion. He was moved.
The Jan. 11, 2025 event at the Glorya Kaufman Community Center at the Wende Museum was sizable. The people gathering for the swearing-in ceremony of newly elected school board president Triston Ezidore filled the seats quickly. As more people came into the A-frame theater – elected officials, school administrators, and many friends and family members – it became a ‘standing room only’ event.
That the evening happened at all was evidence of real determination. The ongoing crises of wildfires, smoke, and challenging air quality made the windowless theater feel like a haven, and donations were being collected at the door for relief efforts.
The program began with MC’s Riley Bosley and Zoe Wahid, both students at Culver Park, introducing the many elected officials present, from Mitchell to California State Superintnent of Schools Tony Thurmond. They turned the podium over the CCSUD Superintendent Dr. Brian Lucas.
Lucas spoke to the moment, noting that while our city was safe, our community was also feeling the effect of the disaster. Several teachers had lost their homes, and our students had lost a few days of school because of air quality issues. Both Culver City Federation of Teachers President Ray Long and School Board Vice President Stephanie Loredo spoke, offering insights from school staff and elected leadership.
A bit of music lightened the mood, with Adina Austin, Maya Austin, Sam Austin, Seina Johnson and Kai Johnson leading the gathering in ‘Lift Every Voice and Sing,’ a cappella.
An Interfaith invocation was offered by both Rabbi Zach Shapiro of Temple Akiba and Rev. Dr. Frances Rosenau of the Culver City Presbyterian Church, offering wisdom from both the Mishnah and the Psalms.
Congressional Representative Sydney Kamlager-Dove took the podium with her congratulations to Ezidore, and her sincere offer, “I will have your back.”
State Superintendent of Schools Thurmond told of his first election to School Board in the 2009 recession, and spoke about taking a stand against closing schools. “We are here to put children first, and everything else is the landscape around them.”
State Senator Lola Smallwood-Cuevas noted that while the political headwinds were expected to be fierce, she knew that Ezidore had what it took to withstand.
When Supervisor Mitchell came to administer the oath of office, she reminded Ezidore that he has a strong community behind him, and that his historic achievement of being the youngest elected official and the first Black man to hold the presidency of the Culver City School Board was deserving of the applause.
After taking his oath of office, Ezidore confessed that his tendency to set down remarks at the last minute had been the case this evening. He spoke briefly, emphasizing that “it’s about reaffirming our commitment to our students, our families, and the future we can build together.”
In closing, Bosley and Wahid said that they were both students at the freshly re-opened Culver Park, and that the support for the program had made a huge difference for them. Wahid said she’d gone up more than a full point on her GPA, and as a graduating senior, had been accepted to five universities. She tearfully thanked Ezidore and the other board members who had fought to get the program reinstated, and held herself as the evidence that good policy creates good results.
The next meeting of the CCUSD School Board will be on Tuesday, Jan. 14, 2025.
Judith Martin-Straw
Photo L to R – Triston Ezidore, his mother Hanh Pruitt and Holly J. Mitchell