Students Walk Out to Protest Threatened Layoffs : Demonstration: About 1,000 join in mostly peaceful gathering in Granada Hills. Some vandalism is reported.

About 1,000 students walked out of classes at Robert Frost Junior High in Granada Hills on Friday to protest threatened teacher layoffs, and seven were detained for truancy when the mostly peaceful demonstration led to scattered vandalism.

Protesters broke the antennas and mirrors on two cars parked nearby and smashed the window of a pickup truck, slightly injuring its driver, Los Angeles police said. No charges were filed because police were unable to identify the vandals, and the detained students were turned over to school officials, Sgt. Joseph Morgan said.

The walkout began shortly after 8 a.m. between homeroom and the first-period class, Morgan said. The number of protesters quickly dwindled to between 300 and 500 of the school’s 1,650 students, who remained on the campus lawn, chanting “save our teachers” and voicing anger over the effect of the proposed layoffs on their futures.

“If they don’t care about our education, how can they care about our future?” ninth-grader Anna Ramirez, 15, said.

“We’re just trying to make a point,” ninth-grader Adam Brodsky, 14, said. “The teachers are telling us to go back to class and we’re out here to help them.”

Most students returned to class about 10 a.m.

Ten teachers, a nurse and a librarian at Frost received layoff notices in March, joining more than 2,000 other professionals in the Los Angeles Unified School District whose jobs may be cut to cope with a $317-million shortfall in the 1991-92 school budget.

The proposed job cuts are subject to approval by the school board and would not become final until June 30, the end of the current budget year.

But an assistant principal at Frost, Irene Herrera-Stuart, said students there have become increasingly upset in the past month as the threatened educators have been absent from school to attend budget hearings and appeal their layoff notices.

“I believe in what they’re doing. I just don’t believe in how they’re doing it,” Herrera-Stuart said of the demonstrators. The assistant principal, who was in tears as police began detaining students, helped quiet the youths by inviting them to take turns speaking into a microphone.

“I want to learn! I want to work with teachers!” said seventh-grader Maria Jimenez, 13, who began to cry herself as she addressed fellow protesters.

“Where is the lottery money?” demanded ninth-grader Kay Lopez when he took the microphone. “Isn’t it supposed to go to the schools? So where is it going?”

The prospect of losing vital school personnel really hit home last week, students and teachers said, when a Frost student cut her finger in a shop class. The school nurse was absent to appeal her layoff notice, and paramedics instead had to be called.

“That just brought the problem to everyone’s attention,” said Bob Berrenson, a history and music teacher.

Principal Jay Peterman said the school itself received no damage. He said administrators would try to determine which students were responsible for the vandalism off campus before deciding on any disciplinary action.

Friday’s walkout at Frost followed a peaceful protest Tuesday at Sun Valley Junior High School, where students marched in support of 19 teachers who received layoff or reassignment notices.

Earlier that day, students at Patrick Henry Junior High School in Granada Hills threatened to stage a walkout over the planned layoffs, but officials persuaded group leaders to return to class and promised a forum to discuss the issue with state officials next week.

LAYOFF BLUES: B1