Loss of Assemblywoman Hurts Effort to Split District

San Fernando Valley parents seeking to break away from the sprawling Los Angeles Unified School District said Tuesday they will continue their efforts despite the announcement that their most important legislative ally is retiring.

The disclosure by Marian La Follette (R-Northridge) that she will not seek re-election surprised many of the Valley parents who have flooded her office with calls in past weeks to support her latest effort to break up the Los Angeles school district into eight or more smaller districts.

“I just spoke with one woman who is just reeling from the news,” said Rita Morrow, a Northridge parent active in the breakup effort.

Many of the parents who volunteered their help on behalf of La Follette’s efforts say they are now without a leader.

La Follette said Tuesday she will continue her efforts to break up the district after her term expires.

“The effort is not going to stop, whoever gets elected,” said Barbara Romey, a Northridge parent and twice a candidate for the Los Angeles school board.

But Romey and others concede that La Follette’s announced retirement is a setback. With only 10 months remaining in office, La Follette will have difficulty following through on the breakup plan that most state and district school officials agree would take three to five years to complete, parents said.

La Follette spearheaded several unsuccessful legislative campaigns to break up the 708-square-mile Los Angeles district. Frustrated with the lack of interest among her colleagues in the Legislature, La Follette this summer launched a plan to have the issue decided by the district’s estimated 1.5 million registered voters.

A task force created by La Follette to study the issue held a series of public hearings in the fall. Sparse attendance at the hearings, however, indicated that Valley residents were not as interested in La Follette’s efforts as in past years.

The breakup campaign finally caught fire with Valley parents after the Los Angeles school board voted Feb. 5 on a plan to relieve classroom crowding by operating schools on a year-round schedule.

Following the board decision, many parents who organized opposition to year-round schools said a breakup of the district remained the only way to free Valley schools from overcrowding and other troubles plaguing schools in the rest of the city.

Parents opposed to year-round schools said they would disrupt child-care arrangements and family vacations. In addition, Valley parents said summer heat would make classrooms unbearable for their children without air conditioning.

The year-round issue also pushed to the surface other concerns of Valley parents, such as worry about the growing number of inner-city children bused to their neighborhood schools.

Three days after the board decision, La Follette aide Robert Wilcox held a joint news conference with leaders of Valley parent groups calling for support of the breakup proposal.

Wilcox said Tuesday that he will continue to serve as executive director of La Follette’s task force studying the breakup issue, which “will be one of the most important parts of my campaign.”

La Follette’s task force is expected to release a report next month calling on the state Board of Education to begin steps toward an election on the breakup issue.

Although Wilcox received La Follette’s endorsement to succeed her, many parents supporting the breakup efforts say they will wait to see who emerges as the leading contender for La Follette’s seat before deciding where to throw their support.

“The energy of parents is there and begging for some good leader to come forward,” said Malka Tasoff, a Tarzana parent and an opponent of year-round schools.

State and local school officials say the breakup plan faces a host of obstacles, including legal challenges that it would create racially segregated school districts, as well as fights over the distribution of the district’s $8.5 billion in property, 610,000 students and $164 million in unpaid bills.

La Follette persuaded Gov. George Deukmejian to include in his proposed budget $250,000 for the state Board of Education and the Los Angeles County Committee on School District Organization to create a breakup plan to put before voters. She had predicted a vote on the issue in 1991.

As late as Friday, La Follette remained in the thick of the breakup efforts. Her staff and volunteers mailed an estimated 4,000 letters to parents interested in the breakup efforts, urging them to write legislators and the president of the state Board of Education to retain the $250,000 in the state’s final budget.