Board to Alter Ethnic Ratios at 48 L.A. Schools

The Los Angeles Board of Education voted Monday to alter the ethnic ratios at 48 schools, allowing more minority youngsters from overcrowded schools to be sent to campuses on the Westside and the West San Fernando Valley.

Changes in the ethnic ratios are needed, officials said, to increase the number of classroom seats and accommodate the district’s fast-growing student population. The new ratio of 70% minority students to 30% white students would provide an additional 4,000 seats at the designated schools, 32 of which are in the West Valley.

But angry parents told board members that they were intentionally creating segregated schools. Many of the schools slated for the conversion currently have an integrated student body, parents said. Dramatically increasing the number of minority students would be tampering with a delicate balance that has been acceptable to the community, they said.

“Opposing this plan puts many of us in a peculiar position because we believe in integrated education. If we didn’t, we wouldn’t be in public schools,” said Pam Bruns, who has a child at Pacific Palisades Elementary School. “But the district is intentionally creating segregated schools. That does no one any good.”

Current Ratio Is 60%-40%

The district would still consider the schools with a 70%-30% ratio to be integrated. Now, the district tries to maintain most enrollments at no more than 60% minority students with at least 40% white students.

The several courts that monitor the district’s desegregation activities have approved the 60%-40% ratio as meeting legal mandates. There have been no court challenges to the 70%-30% plan and district officials said they believe the change would stand up to a legal test.

Monday’s 5-2 vote will bring the total number of Los Angeles city schools operating under the 70%-30% plan to 76, 53 of which are in the Valley. The district hopes that by increasing the number of minority students--primarily Latinos and Asians--on less-crowded campuses it will be able to delay placing more schools on a year-round schedule, another way of creating more classroom spaces.

Board member Tom Bartman, who along with Alan Gershman voted against the proposal, said the board should admit that as it moves away from the 60%-40% ratio, it is more interested in finding space than in integrating schools.

The board’s decision to alter the ratios came after months of meetings in which parents, faculty and members of the business community at each school discussed the implications if minority enrollment is raised to 70%.

The school communities were surveyed about their perceptions through questionnaires based on a 1982 landmark California desegregation case in Oxnard. According to that ruling, a school district can alter ethnic ratios at schools that historically have never had a minority enrollment of 70% or more only if the community says it would not perceive such a school to be racially segregated.

Community Surveyed

The Los Angeles study included questions on the ethnic makeup of the school and an examination of the ethnic composition of students participating in athletics and other extracurricular activities. Participants also were asked to describe what they believed would happen to the school’s curriculum, its relationship with the surrounding community and conditions on the campus if the minority enrollment is dramatically increased.

At the Monday meeting, the parents said the district’s survey was riddled with inaccuracies, poorly written, difficult to understand and structured to reach predetermined conclusions.

“We strongly object to the awkwardly written guidelines. We believe the results were not carefully analyzed,” said Karen Stone, the parent of a child at Paul Revere Junior High on the Westside.

Board members, faced with an expected 15,000 new students in the district each year until 1990, said they had little choice except to vote for the change.

“We don’t want year-round, we don’t want 70%-30%, we want it all to go away,” lamented board member Roberta Weintraub. “But it won’t go away.”