Eastview School Secession Effort Clears First Hurdle : Education: County committee approves parents’ plan to leave the Los Angeles district and sets a vote for 1992.

Parents in the Eastview section of Rancho Palos Verdes Wednesday cleared their first major hurdle in their bid to secede from the Los Angeles Unified School District.

The parents have been lobbying for years for permission to send their children to schools in the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District. On Wednesday, the Los Angeles County Committee on School District Organization deliberated nearly two hours before voting 10-1 in favor of the parents’ petition.

The issue now needs voter approval. Committee members tentatively scheduled the vote for April, 1992..

Los Angeles school district officials oppose the secession plan because they say it would spoil the district’s efforts at racial integration in the San Pedro-Lomita area.

“For us, one of the things that is critical any time anything happens that further segregates the school district (is that) then we are subject to a lawsuit,” said Warren Furutani, a Gardena resident who was elected president of the Los Angeles school board Monday.

The Los Angeles district will appeal the committee’s decision to the State Board of Education in the next few weeks, said attorney Michael M. Johnson, who represents the district.

If the state board finds that the county committee did not follow proper procedures in making its decision, it may hold a public hearing on the petition, said Tony Turcotte, field representative in the state Department of Education’s school district organization unit. The election would be postponed while the matter is pending. The state Board of Education has the final word.

Although Rancho Palos Verdes annexed the Eastview area in 1983, students have remained in the Los Angeles district. Nearly 800 Eastview students attend five Los Angeles district schools, including Crestwood Elementary School and Dodson Junior High School in Rancho Palos Verdes. The three other schools are in Los Angeles.

About 69% of Dodson’s 1,700 students are members of minority groups. At Crestwood, 35% of the 450 students are minorities.

Both schools “are naturally integrated, successful schools,” Johnson said. “If you take out those 700 white students, you’re going to destroy all that.”

But Eastview parent Anthony J. Vulin, who has two children at Taper Avenue School in the Los Angeles district, disagreed. “In effect, these minority students (at Dodson and Crestwood) are being held prisoner by the Los Angeles Unified School District,” he said. “I think the racial issue is really a smoke screen when minority students would be denied being able to attend the Palos Verdes Peninsula School District.”

Rancho Palos Verdes Councilwoman Jacki Bacharach said the county’s approval was good news to the community. “The city is very excited about this,” she said. “We want them (Eastview families) to finish becoming part of our community, and the school district is the only thing separating us.”

If the secession drive succeeds, the Dodson and Crestwood campuses would become the property of the Palos Verdes district. The law does not require the Palos Verdes district to compensate Los Angeles for the sites, but the county committee has recommended that both districts agree to an arrangement that would be equitable for both sides. The school sites have an estimated value of $18 million.

One option under consideration is that the Palos Verdes district, which has closed schools in recent years because of declining enrollment, buy the sites from the overcrowded Los Angeles school district and then lease them back.

At the hearing Wednesday, Palos Verdes schools Supt. Michael W. Caston told the county committee that his district supports the plan, “assuming there would be no financial impact on the district.”

But several committee members expressed frustration that they were forced to make a decision on the parents’ petition before the two school districts resolved their differences over what to do with Crestwood and Dodson.

“It seems like we’ve reached the nth hour and everyone is seeming to say there has been no thought given to what would happen if voters (approve) this issue,” said committee member Nancy Jenkins.

Later, however, she said she would vote in favor of the proposal, if only to convince the Los Angeles district that it needs to pay more attention to the needs of parents in the smaller communities it serves.

“I know this is only the first step,” Eastview parent Vulin said. “It may take years before this reaches a conclusion, but I’m optimistic. This is a good, significant sign.”

Times Staff Writer Tim Waters contributed to this story.