L.A. Schools Tuning In to Power-Sharing Plan : Education: The district takes to the airwaves to explain how schools can initiate fundamental changes in curriculum, teacher hiring and other areas.

The Los Angeles Unified School District took to the airwaves Thursday with a live telecast touting the nation’s most ambitious experiment in school power-sharing, amid complaints by parents that teachers have grabbed the lion’s share of the power.

The teleconference to explain the district’s move into the second phase of school restructuring--which will broaden the influence of the local shared-decision-making councils--drew education experts from around the country who are eagerly watching Los Angeles to see if this plan can help revive the nation’s ailing public education system.

It also attracted a protest from about 50 parents, who marched outside the district-operated television station near downtown while the show aired. The protesters carried placards complaining that parents have not been given equal status on the leadership councils that will ultimately run each school.

The power-sharing councils were formed as part of the settlement of last May’s nine-day teachers’ strike. Each school has elected a council of six to 16 members, with half the seats held by teachers and the remaining spots divided among parents, community members, the school principal and other school employees.

The second phase, called School-Based Management, begins Monday. Under it, schools can apply to broaden their influence beyond the five limited areas covered by the plan thus far, and can initiate fundamental changes in areas such as curriculum and teacher hiring and assignment.

So far, most of the changes made by the councils have been rather mundane: Lunch and recess schedules have been changed, first-graders allowed to perform in the school talent show, teachers granted access to copying machines.

But for the up to 70 schools that will be chosen to move into the School-Based Management phase next fall, the chance is at hand to make meaningful changes that will improve student achievement.

Schools could hold classes into the night and on Saturdays. Grades could be eliminated in some classes. Businesses could be invited on campus to teach entrepreneurial skills. And the councils could reorganize to include more parents.

Each school council will have a chance to devise its own plan to restructure to better meet the needs of its students.

Already, parents at many schools are agitating for equal representation with teachers on the decision-making councils. Some parents have complained that teachers have been more concerned with improving their own working conditions than student achievement--the ultimate aim of the restructuring program.

“The (teachers) union is running the program to their own benefit,” said Bea Stotzer, PTA president at Kester Avenue Elementary in Van Nuys, who is not a member of the school’s elected council and has been at odds with the group.

But teachers’ union Vice President Helen Bernstein, who helped negotiate the shared-decision-making pact, said working conditions must be improved before the councils can move on to bigger issues.

“In a way, only the teachers, who have been directly involved with those problems, have an interest,” she acknowledged. “But first you take care of who’s monitoring the halls and what times the bells will ring, then you get beyond that and get down the real hard issues.”

On Thursday, children were sent home early and principals and teachers--and a sprinkling of parents--gathered in each school to view the telecast on Channel 58 during which the second phase of the power-sharing plan was explained. Viewers could phone in questions to a panel of district and union officials.

Most of those questions were from teachers and many concerned such issues as how schools would finance the changes and how the process would affect future contract negotiations with the district.

Though the district’s shared-decision-making process is already 8 months old, many teachers’ queries Thursday seemed to reflect a lack of understanding about just how it is supposed to be working and skepticism about what it can accomplish and whether it has district support.

At Belmont High School, west of downtown, about 200 faculty members, joined by a few parents and students, crowded into a large third-floor classroom to watch the telecast.

Most listened attentively--though a few dozed through portions of the 90-minute telecast and others expressed skepticism at the upbeat presentation of the upcoming changes.

Teacher Elizabeth Sawyer, who sits on Belmont’s council, said parents, teachers and the principal are “really working well together” in the shared decision-making process, and parent participation is high, despite the fact that three-fourths of Belmont’s 4,100 students are foreign-born and 80 languages resound in its hallways.

At other schools, however, Spanish-speaking parents have complained that--in a district where nearly a third of the students speak little or no English--they have been shut out of the process because meetings and materials are often not translated.

Thursday’s broadcast was only in English, though a repeat of the program Thursday night was accompanied by a Spanish radio simulcast. The television program will be repeated over the district’s station at 3 p.m. Sunday, but only in English.

After the broadcast, school board President Jackie Goldberg acknowledged that the district has to do more to involve parents in the power-sharing plan.

“It is one of our most difficult challenges,” she said. “We have a multi-ethnic, multi-linguistic population. But we have to keep trying, we have to keep reaching out to these parents, with translators and whatever else it takes.”

Because schools can only apply to move into the school-based management phase if two-thirds of the faculty and a majority of the parents at a school agree, it is necessary that parents support the leadership council if the program is to succeed, she said.

“They won’t support something they don’t understand. If they don’t want it and if they don’t agree with it, they can stop it,” she said.

Schools have until April 20 to apply to expand their restructuring program, and a central council and district officials will decide by the summer which schools can put their new plans in place this fall.

The process is a difficult one--schools must show that their shared-decision-making councils are working well and have the support of the school and community. They must explain the rationale behind the changes they propose and how they will improve student achievement. And they must devise ways to measure that achievement.

Some of those changes may run counter to district policy or even violate teachers’ contracts, but waivers could be granted by the central council or school board.

Because the step is such a drastic one, officials estimate that not many of the district’s schools will be ready to move forward this year.

“I don’t think we’ll have too many applications this year,” Goldberg said.

BACKGROUND

Last summer, as a part of its settlement of a teachers strike, the Los Angeles Unified School District agreed to give parents, teachers and community leaders greater say in how local schools are run. Each school has elected its own leadership council and they have been making decisions in areas such as student discipline, scheduling and use of school equipment. The ultimate aim of the power-sharing plan is to improve student achievement by restructuring schools to better meet students’ needs.

LOS ANGELES’ SCHOOL RESTRUCTURING PLAN

Los Angeles Unified schools are being restructured to better serve the needs of students. This can take many forms and include such steps as redesigning curriculum and class schedules, hiring outside consultants to provide special courses or establishing ungraded classrooms. In Los Angeles, the restructuring plan has two phases:

Phase 1 is shared decision-making, which began last July with the election of school councils. Most schools will remain in this phase for several years. It allows parents, teachers, staff and community leaders to make decisions in specific areas that were formerly the purview of principals and central administration. In the Los Angeles district, those decisions are made by consensus, with proposals tailored to win everyone’s support, rather than by a vote of decision-making council members.

Phase 2 is school-based management, under which parents, teachers, principals, staff and community representatives can make fundamental changes in virtually every area of school operation--including budget, teacher hiring and assignment and curriculum and teaching methods--with approval of the school board. Up to 70 schools can begin the school-based management process this fall, once their proposals for change are approved next month.