All-Year Classes Are Illegal, Parents Say : Education: Opponents of year-round schools say the school board did not give legal notice for the extension.

Valley 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 disagrees.

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 Valley school board seat.

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.

Romey said parents are prepared to cite the requirement should the fight move from the school board to the courts.

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

Mason said Thursday 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 that the requirement does not apply as long as students can transfer to schools on traditional schedules. “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.

Romey said she began passing out copies of the code section to San Fernando Valley and Westside parents who have attended public hearings and demonstrations that drew hundreds of participants in the past two weeks. Parents opposed to year-round schools say the plan will require students to attend classes in stifling heat and disrupt vacations and child-care arrangements.

The school board is expected to make a decision Monday on the controversial proposal to increase classroom capacity by 23% through year-round schedules, double sessions or larger class sizes. Forty-five of the schools under consideration for changes are in the Valley.

District officials say the changes are needed to accommodate soaring enrollment in the 610,000-student district, the nation’s second largest.

“Once the board votes, the question will be, ‘Do we go after a temporary restraining order?’ ” Romey said.