Redistricting Plan for LAUSD

I find it extremely important that I write to express my concerns about the City Council vote that will be taken Friday on the redistricting of the Los Angeles Unified School District.

I fervently hope that the City Council will reconsider the redistricting plan and vote against it. The plan will divide the Valley into four school board districts, three of which will be primarily in the central portions of Los Angeles. It is destructive, divisive and unconscionable. The new redistricting plan for the LAUSD is a Draconian scheme to systematically break up and destroy the representation of the San Fernando Valley.

The ad hoc committee’s main motivation was to help and preserve communities of interest, but only in the central portions of the city. It did not take into consideration the needs and interests of the Afro-American communities, the Latino communities or the Korean communities in the San Fernando Valley. The committee was concerned about not breaking up Koreatown with a population of 100,000 people, but was not concerned about breaking up the San Fernando Valley with a population of 1.25 million people.

The children of the San Fernando Valley should not be made the sacrificial lambs of the City Council. The redistricting plan that has been devised is not rational, is not workable, is not manageable, and is not serviceable. It will be on their conscience for the next 10 years that they were the architects of a redistricting plan that encouraged the final straw that broke the back of public education.

It is incumbent upon the City Council to make an extremely wise decision. I hope the council will not take this vote lightly and will not make the San Fernando Valley the orphan of the city. The San Fernando Valley will not tolerate this. The needs and interests of our community must be taken into consideration. It is imperative that the San Fernando Valley be allowed to have its own representation. We are dealing with the education of thousands of children, who will be negatively impacted by the current plan before the City Council. JULIE KORENSTEIN

Board Member, District 4