p]:text-cms-story-body-color-text clearfix”> Three seats — two contested — are on the June 2 primary ballot for the seven-member Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education. The nation’s second-largest school system, with about 390,000 students, faces evolving challenges and uncertainties that could alter the direction of the district for years. In mid-April L.A. Unified officials barely averted a strike by agreeing to significant employee raises, rescinding about 200 layoffs and agreeing to hundreds of new hires of counselors, school psychologists and other student support staff. The contracts with three district unions, including teachers, will cost nearly $1.2 billion a year, and board members now must find a way to pay for them amid budget pressures. Standardized test scores have trended upward since the nadir of the COVID-19 pandemic, recovering faster than the state average, but the pace remains too incremental for critics. The future of L.A. schools Supt. Alberto Carvalho is uncertain. He’s on paid administrative leave following FBI raids of his San Pedro home and downtown office. At least part of the investigation centers …