Plan to Review School Schedule Fails to Placate Foes

The Los Angeles school board is expected to vote on Monday to reconsider its recent decision to put all 592,000 students in the district on a year-round calendar. But that upcoming move may have already backfired against the stated goal of its prime mover, board member Warren Furutani.

Instead of quelling the anger of opponents of such a schedule with the offer of giving them more time to speak, Furutani’s proposal appears to have inflamed some sentiments even more, according to interviews with parents’ groups on Friday.

“I think the idea is to take some political heat off if he has any further political aspirations,” said Barbara Romey of Northridge, a leader in a parents’ group called QUEST, which is dedicated to fighting the year-round calendar. “I don’t think events changed at all. I think this is just a stalling tactic.”

Romey said that members of her organization will be happy to present their views again in hearings but will not consider Furutani a friend unless he changes his vote and opposes the schedule switch. QUEST (which stands for Quality Education for Children) has threatened to sue the school board over the issue. Furutani has said he still supports the new, proposed calendar but thinks that parents did not have a fair chance to debate it.

Meanwhile, the board and district staff were struggling Friday to prepare for Monday’s meeting, which could produce bitter debate.

“I’m perplexed and I assume everybody else is,” said Rita Walters, board president and a supporter of the year-round calendar.

Bill Rivera, assistant to Superintendent of Schools Leonard Britton, said: “It is a very unusual situation. In my 27 years here, I can’t remember when the board ever voted to reconsider this big a decision.”

Rivera said that administrators had received surprisingly few phone calls on Friday about the issue and its reconsideration.

Britton could not be reached for comment Friday.

Furutani’s proposal does not specify what form the future hearings should take or how long they should last. According to Rivera, it usually takes at least a week to notify the public of upcoming hearings and could take at least six months for the hearings to be completed.

Furutani’s motion does not affect the task force approved on Monday to study the various year-round schedules the school board can choose from. Under such schedules, students attend schools the same amount of time they do in a traditional calendar; but instead of having all summer off, students have more frequent and shorter vacations.

Furutani’s proposal also would not change the board’s decision to add 14 severely overcrowded elementary schools to the 85 schools already on the year-round shifts.

Some parents in the Harbor area represented by Furutani pledged to begin a recall movement against him in the wake of his crucial swing vote cast in the 4-3 decision earlier this week to have all 618 schools on the new calendar by 1989. (About a quarter of the district is already on such a schedule to cope with overcrowding.) On Friday, those parents said the possible recall is still alive.

“I acknowledge his somewhat change of heart but I don’t think he has changed his views. And because of that, we will still look into recall procedures,” said Eleanor Kooper of San Pedro. “At this point, he has evoked the wrath of everyone around him because of the way he has acted.”

Anthony Coppola, a San Pedro parent strongly opposed to a calendar switch, said he voted for Furutani but now is angered by the trustee’s position on the schedule, as well as by what Coppola called Furutani’s “waffling” on the issue. “To me, it shows indecision on his part and we don’t know what to expect from him,” Coppola said. “Having someone in the gray area is worse than having someone in black or white.” However, Coppola also said he too welcomes the prospect of more hearings.

Furutani did not answer several telephone messages from The Times to his office and home on Friday. On Thursday, he said he realized that his reconsideration measure would provoke a furor but that the controversy would be worthwhile if it aided the democratic process.

His critics on the side for the year-round calendar said Furutani simply could not withstand the pressure his original vote provoked. “He was getting heat you wouldn’t believe,” said one, who requested anonymity.

However, other people in Furutani’s 7th District applauded his move. Among them was Robert Hargrave, the mayor of Lomita and a leader in the now-stymied movement to have Lomita secede from the Los Angeles Unified School District. “No matter what he did, he is going to take a lot of criticism,” Hargrave said. “I’d rather have him reconsider. I’d rather have a waffler who is taking in everybody’s concerns than have someone who is sure he is dead right and is inflexible. I think what he did takes a lot of courage.”

Furutani on Friday took the necessary first step toward reconsideration: drafting and posting a formal motion. On Monday, he will first have to ask the board to waive its usual rule that all motions await at least three weeks for a vote. Then, he is expected to ask the board to set aside its 4-3 vote earlier this week that would put all Los Angeles Unified District schools on a year-round calendar by 1989. Finally, he is likely to win a postponement of any reconsideration until after a set of public hearings.

He is expected to have the support of the three board members who voted against the year-round proposal. Two of the three representatives who joined Furutani in the majority for the new calendar--Jackie Goldberg and Walters--said they would vote against his proposal on Monday. Leticia Quezada, who also voted for the switch, refused to discuss the matter with a reporter on Friday.

THE SCHOOL BOARD AND THE YEAR-ROUND PROPOSAL

The Board’s Options

1. Adopt some kind of districtwide year-round system in which all students start school in July and take short and more frequent vacation breaks throughout the year. A districtwide year-round system would combine:

A “single-track” calendar for uncrowded schools, in which all students are in and out of class at the same time.

And a “multi-track” calendar for severely overcrowded schools, which adds classroom space by placing some students on vacation while others are in school.

2. Continue to add crowded schools to multi-track, year-round schedules in which some students are on vacation while others are in class.

3. Increase busing from crowded schools and raise integration ratios to enable more busing to predominantly white schools.

4. Reopen closed schools and increase busing to these sites.

5. Continue to add portable classrooms and build new schools.

WHERE THE SCHOOL BOARD MEMBERS AND THE SUPERINTENDENT STAND

Warren Furutani

( Watts to Harbor area )

Supports year-round concept but wants only the most crowded schools on multi-track calendars with these schedules implemented gradually. Supports a single-track schedule for all other schools.

Jackie Goldberg

(Hollywood, Wilshire Corridor, part of downtown)

The three favor placing the entire district immediately on a year-round calendar, with multi- and single-track schedules as warranted.

Rita Walters (South-Central, Southwestern L.A.)

The three favor placing the entire district immediately on a year-round calendar, with multi- and single-track schedules as warranted.

Leticia Quezada

(Eastside)

The three favor placing the entire district immediately on a year-round calendar, with multi- and single-track schedules as warranted.

Roberta Weintraub

(East San Fernando Valley)

Both oppose the year-round concept, although they concede that the single-track appears to have some benefits. They support placing the most-crowded schools on multi-track calendars but oppose districtwide conversion to year-round schools.

Julie Korenstein

(West San Fernando Valley)

Both oppose the year-round concept, although they concede that the single-track appears to have some benefits. They support placing the most-crowded schools on multi-track calendars but oppose districtwide conversion to year-round schools.

Alan Gershman

(Westside)

Likes the year-round concept but opposes districtwide implementation.

Supt. Leonard Britton

Says he is not totally convinced that a year-round schedule is good for everyone, even though he recommended adopting the districtwide single-track system for all schools except the severely overcrowded, where he endorsed the multi-track plan.