Bill Could Thwart Year--Round School Plans

State Sen. Alan Robbins (D-Van Nuys) will introduce legislation next week that would give parents the power to stop school districts from instituting year-round calendars, a spokesman for the senator said Thursday.

According to a Robbins aide, Terry Burns, Robbins’ bill will require that a vote be taken of parents of students attending any elementary or junior high school under consideration for a year-round schedule. The school could change to a 12-month schedule from the traditional nine-month schedule only if parents approved.

In the case of high schools, students would be able to vote along with their parents to determine whether the school goes to a year-round schedule.

“We believe high school students have a right to have a voice in these decisions,” said Burns, who specializes in education issues. “Many of them have jobs, many of them are old enough to vote” in political elections, Burns said. “They are more responsible for their outside time than an 8-year-old.”

Concept Approved

Earlier this month, the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education voted 5 to 2 to approve the concept of increasing the number of schools on a year-round schedule as a way of finding space for the 82,000 additional students the district expects in the next five years.

Los Angeles school district policy now allows parents to vote on year-round conversion plans, but the school board is not bound by the results.

“Our objective is to get the school board to follow the parents’ wishes,” Susan Lerner told a newly formed group called Community United to Reform Education (CURE) Wednesday night. CURE is working with Robbins on the proposal.

The school board is scheduled to take a final vote in late February on the year-round plan and other proposals aimed at alleviating crowding at some Los Angeles schools.

“We have to get the word out that there is still time to undermine the year-round proposal,” Alan Levine, a Westside parent, said at the meeting in downtown Los Angeles.

Group’s 2 Goals

Lerner and other CURE leaders said the group has two goals. Its short-term goal is to eliminate the possibility of the district’s 618 schools being placed on a year-round schedule. The long-term goal is to persuade state legislators to free money for construction of more schools.

The Robbins proposal would also allow parents of students at the 93 Los Angeles district schools now on a year-round calendar to vote on whether they want to remain on it. Parents from some of these schools have said they like the system and do not want to change.

A spokesman for the school district said he is unsure what effect, if any, Robbins’ bill might have on the board’s pending decision on the year-round proposal.

When it endorsed the year-round proposal, the board also voted to reopen eight San Fernando Valley schools it closed because of low enrollment if the reopening of those schools can reduce crowding elsewhere. The board also approved the removal of ninth-graders from seven Valley high schools if that should prove necessary to make space for more students in the 10th, 11th and 12th grades.

Parents at the CURE meeting also were told that a group of Westside parents has started recall procedures against their board representative, Alan Gershman.

During the debate over the year-round measure, Gershman took a surprisingly strong position in favor of the proposal. He estimated that “probably 99%” of the people in his district were against year-round schools but said he supported the measure because he didn’t see any alternative.

A legal notice of the group’s intention to circulate recall petitions is scheduled to appear in today’s edition of the Daily Journal, a Los Angeles-based legal newspaper.

According to Liz Haskell, a leader of the fledgling recall drive, a copy of the notice will be sent to Gershman by registered mail. Under Los Angeles municipal codes, Gershman has 14 days to respond.

Haskell added that the group can begin circulating petitions 21 days after the recall notice has been published. Signatures of 15% of the registered voters in the Westside district will be needed, which amounts to 14,000 to 15,000 valid signatures, according to the Los Angeles city clerk’s office.