La Follette Retirement Is Setback for Parents Group

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

The disclosure by Assemblywoman Marian W. La Follette (R-Northridge) that she will not seek reelection to her 38th District seat surprised many of the Valley parents, who have flooded her office with calls in recent weeks to support her latest effort to break up the 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 support of the break-up effort.

Although La Follette endorsed an aide to succeed her and said she will continue the fight to break up the district after she retires, many of the parents who have volunteered their help say they are now without a leader.

“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 she and others conceded that La Follette’s retirement will be a setback.

With only 10 months remaining in office, La Follette will have difficulty following through on the breakup plan that most state and Los Angeles school officials agree would take three to five years to complete, parents said.

La Follette announced her retirement plans at a news conference Tuesday and said she favors Robert Wilcox, 24, an aide in her office since 1986, to succeed her.

La Follette has spearheaded several unsuccessful legislative campaigns in past years to break up the 708-square-mile Los Angeles school district. Frustrated by the lack of interest among her colleagues in the Legislature, La Follette this summer launched a plan to have the issue decided by the estimated 1.5 million registered voters who live within the boundaries of the Los Angeles district.

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

The campaign to break up the 610,000-student district finally caught fire with Valley parents after the Los Angeles school board voted Feb. 5 to relieve classroom crowding by operating schools on a year-round schedule.

After the board decision, many of the parents who organized opposition to year-round schools said a break-up of the district remained the only way to free Valley schools from overcrowding and other troubles plaguing schools in the rest of the city. The year-round issue also brought to the surface parents’ concerns about the growing number of inner-city children bused to their neighborhood schools.

Wilcox said Tuesday that he will continue to serve as executive director of La Follette’s task force studying the breakup issue and that the matter “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 take steps toward authorizing an election on the breakup issue.

State and local school officials say the breakup plan faces a host of obstacles, including legal challenges over the creation of segregated school districts, as well as fights over the district’s $8.5 billion in property and $164 million in unpaid bills.

Times staff writer Jack Cheevers contributed to this story.