School Counselor Malaika Ware Launches Campaign for Norwalk-La Mirada School Board

Norwalk-La Mirada Unified School District Trustee Area 6 candidate Malaika Ware is joined by supporters during her campaign kickoff at Neff Park in La Mirada. Ware, a credentialed school counselor and mother of six, is making her first run for elected office. Courtesy photo from Ware Campaign.

LCCN Staff Report

LA MIRADA — School counselor Malaika Ware has formally launched her campaign for the Norwalk-La Mirada Unified School District Board of Education, telling supporters at a Neff Park kickoff that the district needs to take a harder look at declining enrollment and why families are choosing schools outside the district.

Ware, a mother of six who has four children currently attending Norwalk-La Mirada schools, is running for Trustee Area 6 in the Nov. 3 election. This will be the first election in which voters in Area 6 choose their own representative.

“I am not a career politician. This is the first time I’ve ever run for office for anything,” Ware told supporters. “So every day I show up to help students succeed in academics and in life.”

Ware holds a California Pupil Personnel Services credential, a master’s degree in counseling and a bachelor’s degree in psychology. Her background includes work as a university lecturer, substitute teacher, track coach and family support specialist. She currently works as a school counselor in a neighboring district, helping eighth-grade students prepare for college and careers.

Declining enrollment emerged as a major theme of her campaign kickoff. According to figures cited by the campaign from the district’s 2026-27 proposed budget, average daily attendance has fallen 26% over the past decade, from 17,807 students to 13,159. First-grade enrollment has declined 28% since 2019, compared with a 13% decline among 12th-graders.

“While declining enrollment has slowed a bit, enrollment does continue to decline,” Ware said. “Families who live in this district are choosing to go outside of the district to educate their children.”

Ware said the district needs to understand why those families are leaving.

Her platform includes expanding dual enrollment opportunities with Cerritos College, requiring an annual report examining whether students’ IEP and 504 plans are actually being delivered in classrooms, and establishing more consistent follow-through when teachers remove students from class.

On the contentious issue of school closures, Ware has stopped short of promising that no additional campuses would close. Instead, she said decisions of that magnitude should not be made without substantially involving the families affected by them.

Ware has collected endorsements from several current elected officials, including La Mirada Mayor Pro Tem Steve De Ruse and Councilmember John Lewis. She is also backed by four members of the Norwalk-La Mirada school board — Vice President Becky Langenwalter and members Narcis Brasov, Espie Free and Mark Copland — as well as Cerritos College trustees Dawn Green, Zurich Lewis and James Cody Birkey.

“Malaika has spent her whole career helping kids in schools, and that is exactly the kind of experience this board should have at the table,” Lewis said. “She will be a thoughtful and well-prepared trustee for our neighborhoods.”

At the Neff Park kickoff, Ware invited attendees to write their priorities for local schools on sticky notes placed on a board and promised she would read each one. Her campaign plans to begin walking neighborhoods this month.