P.V. Parents Sue to Halt Proposal to Close Schools : Education: The district’s budget-cutting plan would involve consolidation and teacher layoffs. Seven campuses would be affected.

A newly formed group of Palos Verdes parents has filed suit against the peninsula school district, claiming a budget-cutting plan to close schools and reassign students has significant, unaddressed implications for the district.

The lawsuit, filed Friday in Los Angeles Superior Court, seeks to halt the district’s plan on grounds that an environmental impact report only considered the closure of one of the seven campuses affected by the proposal. And that limited review, the suit claims, ignores a range of problems that would result if the financially troubled district goes ahead with its reorganization.

District officials declined comment on the lawsuit until they had a chance to review it. But Supt. Michael Caston said Friday that school officials believe they have adequately studied their plan.

“Obviously, we feel it has been properly done and that we will prevail in court,” Caston said.

The plan, adopted last December by the school board, seeks to offset a projected $3-million deficit this fall largely through the school consolidation plan. To save $2.3 million, the plan calls for closing two of three high schools, converting those schools into intermediate campuses, closing the existing two intermediates and cutting personnel throughout the district.

Only days before the lawsuit was filed by a group calling itself Preserve Our Peninsula Schools, the school board moved forward with the consolidation plan, approving the layoffs of 15 permanent teachers and 58 temporary or probationary instructors. The action, district officials said, would save an estimated $600,000.

But the lawsuit is aimed at derailing those layoffs and other elements of the consolidation plan in favor of other options, such as a parcel tax on property owners. That approach, though unsuccessful in a 1987 election and still considered unrealistic by school officials, is preferable to closing campuses, members of the parents group said Friday.

“All of us are in favor of trying this parcel tax again,” said Susan Devaney, a resident of Palos Verdes Estates and treasurer of the 20-member group.

Added Andrew Sargent of Rancho Palos Verdes: “There are a large number of people who think the (district’s) plan is bad. They think the school board should not do this, but do not believe it will listen.”

Specifically, the lawsuit contends that school officials, after adopting an environmental report that focused only on the closure of Miraleste High School, then adopted a “sweeping” plan that also involved closure of Palos Verdes High School, reassigning all high school students to Rolling Hills High School, and other consolidation measures.

“The EIR is not only defective as an EIR, it is also defective in that the public was never allowed to comment on the broader plan,” said the group’s attorney, Michael Leslie. “The public was essentially blindsided when the board adopted this project.”

The lawsuit, which seeks an immediate court order blocking the district’s plan, argues that its implications are certain to be far-reaching in many areas, including traffic and safety on the peninsula. “We argue it will have a huge impact in those areas. The transfer of the intermediate students alone will increase traffic on some of the most congested roadways on the peninsula,” Leslie said.

Without commenting on the lawsuit, Supt. Caston noted that the group’s goal of a parcel tax in lieu of the consolidation plan has been deemed too risky by the district’s school board.

“The determination was that the district is in such severe financial trouble that the tax would be too much of a gamble, that we would be insolvent if it is not approved” by voters, Caston said.

Five years ago this month, a proposed $100-per-parcel tax for the district was approved by 61% of the voters in four peninsula cities, but it fell short of the two-thirds majority required by law for new property taxes.

Even if a temporary parcel tax was approved, Caston said, the magnitude of the district’s financial crisis, coupled with years of declining enrollment, suggest that such a levy would be only a short-term answer to a long-term issue. “The problem would not be fixed. It would just be postponed,” he said.

Last Monday, school board members moved forward with the consolidation plan with the announced layoffs. The layoffs, which would reduce the district’s teaching staff by about 10% this fall, were announced to meet a state-mandated deadline for notifying teachers of potential cuts. They affected instructors who have been with the district as long as 18 years, according to Loren Anders, executive director of the Palos Verdes Faculty Assn.

The association, which represents permanent, full-time teachers, would represent those who want to challenge the layoffs when administrative hearings are conducted in the coming weeks. “We will do the best we can to oppose layoffs,” he said.

Previously, district officials announced cuts in administration and the so-called classified work force comprising secretaries, clerks, custodians and maintenance employees.

The consolidation plan, coupled with attrition, are forecast to save the district $2.3 million of its projected $3-million deficit in the coming year. Additional, unannounced cuts in district personnel are expected to make up the remainder of the deficit.

“It’s not easy, but we’re going to get there,” said Caston. “It’s just a matter of keeping this district from going bankrupt, and we all understand what we have to do.”