Legal Tool in Schools Rift Cited : Education: Parents fighting the year-round school proposal say the district failed to follow state law. A special counsel for the superintendent disagrees.

Some parents fighting the conversion of 109 Los Angeles schools to year-round schedules say they have found legal grounds to block the proposed changes, a former school board candidate said Thursday. But a school board attorney disagreed.

Barbara Romey, who has been working with other parents opposed to year-round schools, said the Los Angeles Unified School District failed to give proper notice of the proposed changes, which would begin this summer.

‘There is a good, legal tool to fight this,” said Romey, who has run twice for the West San Fernando Valley seat on the school board.

The California Education Code requires districts intending to convert schools from traditional to year-round schedules to publish those plans in a newspaper advertisement before November of the year preceding the changes.

But Richard Mason, special counsel to Los Angeles school Supt. Leonard Britton, said the code does not apply to the district’s proposals.

Mason said the district is exempt from the code requirement because no Los Angeles students will be required to attend year-round school. Parents who oppose year-round schools can apply for transfers to schools with traditional schedules, he said.

Mason also said the district may be exempt from the provision because it printed notices in 1987, when the board first considered changing schools to year-round schedules.

Joseph R. Symkowick, general counsel for the state Department of Education, said he is uncertain whether the code requirement applies to Los Angeles.

But in general, Symkowick said, “anyone looking at the case would consider not just the letter of the law but its intent, which is to allow for parent input.”

Charles Ballinger, executive director of the National Assn. for Year-Round Education, a nonprofit group supporting year-round schools, said he agreed with Mason’s argument. “But none of this has ever gone to court,” he said.

Britton has recommended that all schools in the district convert to some form of year-round schedule by summer, 1991.

Parents opposed to year-round schools say the plan will require students to attend classes in stifling heat and will disrupt vacations and child-care arrangements.

The school board is expected to make a decision Monday on the controversial proposal.