L.A. Unified Will Sue to Block Eastview Secession Vote : Schools: The district says it needs the Rancho Palos Verdes students for racial balancing. Residents of the area vow to fight back.

Residents of the Eastview neighborhood of Rancho Palos Verdes feel they are getting another taste of how David must have felt battling Goliath.

For nearly five years, residents of this upscale area have been trying to break away from the Los Angeles Unified School District so their children can attend classes in the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District. And lawyers for the Los Angeles school district have fought them every step of the way.

“This is about bureaucratic control,” said Craig Kelford, spokesman for Eastview’s Residents For Unified Local Education (RULE). “They’re big, have the power and want to hold on to it . . . but we won’t give up.”

In the latest skirmish, Los Angeles school officials say they will file suit in July to block a Nov. 3 ballot measure that would let Eastview voters choose between the school districts.

Michael Johnson, a private attorney hired by the city of Los Angeles to block the Eastview exodus, said the suit will be filed in Los Angeles Superior Court. It will challenge decisions this spring by the county Committee for School District Organization and the State Board of Education that gave the go-ahead for the ballot measure.

The battle is over Eastview’s 780 students, two school sites--Crestwood Elementary and Dodson Junior High--and $2.4 million in state school funding.

Johnson said Los Angeles needs the predominantly white Eastview students to maintain the racial balance in the two schools. Black and Latino students are bused from inner-city areas to schools in the affluent Eastview neighborhoods.

Kelford called this latest action by Los Angeles “a terrible waste of tax dollars . . . but I guarantee you we’ll not lack for funds to fight back. The citizens here are mad.”

Earlier this month the county Committee on School District Organization voted 6 to 3 to let the voters of the Eastview neighborhood decide the issue in the November general election.

Los Angeles school officials had asked that the election include all voters in the Los Angeles district, which serves about 640,000 students with 651 schools. The committee denied that request, ruling that the loss of two schools and 780 students would not have a severe impact on the larger district.

The conflict began 10 years ago when the majority of the 2,500 homeowners in the then-unincorporated east side of the Palos Verdes Peninsula voted to be annexed to the city of Rancho Palos Verdes. Many of the parents wanted their children in Palos Verdes schools, but the Los Angeles district said no. The annexation took place in 1983.

In 1988, Eastview parents formed RULE and petitioned the county committee for permission to join the Palos Verdes schools. The fight was on, and each time Eastview residents won a round, Los Angeles appealed, delaying the final decision through this spring.

In May, the State Board of Education rejected the Los Angeles school district’s final appeal, upholding RULE’s right to take the matter to the voters. The county committee then ruled that the election will include only Eastview voters.

If the Eastview voters do get to decide this issue, they are likely to vote themselves out of L.A. Unified and into Palos Verdes schools, most officials agree. Approval of the ballot measure would also transfer the school sites to the Palos Verdes district, with L.A. Unified being compensated in a way yet to be determined.

With a declining enrollment, Palos Verdes needs more students, but the district has no use for the two schools. Officials there say they would be willing to lease the two sites back to L.A. Unified for a nominal sum.

Whether the issue ever gets that far will depend on the courts, if the county files suit as promised.

“We hope the issue will be resolved before November,” Los Angeles spokesman Johnson said.