Settlement of Suit on School Spending OKd : Education: Agreement to end inequities between middle-class and poor campuses in allocating resources is seen as the removal of the last stumbling block.

Nearly six years after the legal wrangling began, attorneys for the Los Angeles Unified School District and a group of parents said Tuesday they have removed the last stumbling blocks to settling a lawsuit that charges the district with perpetuating inequities between campuses in middle-class and poor neighborhoods.

The revised agreement, approved by the school board in a closed-door meeting Monday, would equalize district spending so that every campus receives the same amount of money per pupil to pay for everything from classroom supplies to teacher salaries. The settlement is subject to final approval by a Los Angeles Superior Court judge.

“We have an agreement. We feel good,” said Peter Roos, an attorney for the plaintiffs. “Any negotiated settlement is a compromise . . . but we think it’s a good settlement and will benefit black and Latino kids.”

District legal counsel Richard Mason agreed and expressed relief that a potentially costly trial had been avoided. “In contrast to expensive litigation that this institution has faced, this (settlement) must be seen as an important, significant development for our community.”

The district and plaintiffs had been in negotiations for more than a year to hammer out a consent decree that would keep the case from going to trial. One of the last obstacles was an amendment allowing the district to be considered in compliance if 90% of its more than 600 schools met the decree’s equality standards in five years. Another disagreement was over who would have the burden of proving in court that the district had acted in bad faith if all schools did not meet established equality standards.

The decree states that each school would receive the same amount of money per pupil based on the district’s average expenditure per student, and that all schools would have to bring their spending within $100 of that average by 1997-98. The lawsuit alleged that the district spends as much as $400 a year less per pupil in predominantly minority elementary schools.

But in March the Board of Education approved a change that would allow the district to be in compliance if only 90% met the standards by the five-year deadline. The revised agreement states explicitly the district’s commitment to bring every school into compliance.

“What we have clarified is the district’s good-faith commitment to continue to concentrate on any school which is out of compliance in an effort to continue to work toward 100% equalization,” said Mason.

Plaintiffs in the case were initially hesitant to accept the 90% figure, said Roos. “There was concern . . . that if 10% were out (of compliance) the district could not be held accountable,” Roos said. “The agreement now commits them to take good-faith steps to bring (all) schools into equality, and if they don’t, they can be held in contempt. We don’t expect a problem.”

The agreement now provides that it would be up to the plaintiffs to prove in court that the district acted in bad faith, said Mason. The revised agreement also increases district reporting requirements on compliance.

The district and plaintiffs will appear before Judge Ralph Nutter on May 5. Before reaching a final decision, the court will also hear from various intervenors in the case, including United Teachers-Los Angeles and a group of parents who have challenged the proposed settlement.

The union is concerned that the spending formula is too rigid, while parents in Westside and Valley schools have complained that the formula fails to take into account special money that schools with a majority of poor and low-achieving students receive.