EDUCATION / SCHOOL BOARD POLITICS : Latina President on the Defensive in New District : Leticia Quezada: She calls for unity. But area activists bemoan a loss of representation and are reluctant to accept their new voices on the board.

On Friday, the same day she began officially representing the northeastern portion of the San Fernando Valley, Los Angeles school board President Leticia Quezada met with angry Valley PTSA leaders in a fence-mending session she billed as “a call for unity.”

But the parents saw it differently. They entered the meeting expecting a private conference to “clear the air” after what they perceived to be a venomous attack on their integrity by board member Jeff Horton and, by extension, Quezada herself, because of her refusal to disavow his comments.

The differing perceptions of the meeting illustrate the tough situation Quezada faces as she assumes her new duties following a fractious dispute over a redistricting plan that has eliminated one of two Valley-based seats on the Board of Education.

Horton, too, who also attended Friday’s meeting, faces a similar task, since he now represents a wedge of the Valley stretching from North Hollywood into Van Nuys.

Even as some community activists bemoan the Valley’s political fragmentation and threaten to sue the city in their continuing battle to overturn the redistricting plan, Quezada and Horton have become their newest voices on the seven-member board.

A coalition of Valley organizations, including the 31st District Parent Teacher Student Assn., argues that the new map weakens the Valley’s influence because representation is shared among four school board members, only one of whom--longtime official Roberta Weintraub--has an all-Valley constituency.

Quezada’s own district is shaped like a dumbbell, with the communities of Sylmar and Pacoima yoked to a portion of northeast Los Angeles by a narrow corridor only a few blocks wide at some points.

“It’s a very strangely drawn district,” Quezada said in a recent interview in her downtown board office.

However, as the only Latina on the board and the first to be its president, Quezada supports the new map, which is configured to ensure Latino control of two seats in accordance with the federal Voting Rights Act. In recent weeks, her endorsement of the plan has pitted her against parents and community leaders--some of them Latino--who fear Quezada will dismiss Valley concerns and cater instead to her longtime political base in northeast Los Angeles.

Quezada, who turns 39 today, acknowledged that she will have to familiarize herself with her new district but pronounced herself capable, willing and excited to work with her new constituents.

“This whole area will be brand-new to me, and one of my first tasks is to go out there to get to know that community . . . I have already begun the process,” she said, citing meetings she has scheduled with various groups in the area.

“Clearly, the lines have been drawn and we have to move from there,” she said. “The most that I could ask is for them to be open to the idea and to give me some time to show them that they will have adequate representation. They will see in time, as the issues come up and we address those issues . . . that their fears were unfounded.”

In fact, Quezada said, Latino parents from throughout the Los Angeles Unified School District, including some in the Valley, have called on her for assistance in the past, declaring her their representative as the school board’s only Spanish-speaking member.

But critics of the redistricting contend that the Valley has a unique identity, which they contend is mostly sacrificed under the new boundaries. Without its previously assigned advocates, they say, the area will suffer when it comes to such needs as air-conditioning in classrooms in the hottest parts of the school district.

Horton, 44, whose district includes parts of Hollywood and the mid-Wilshire area, disputes the notion of Valley homogeneity.

“The Valley has evolved over the years and it’s very diverse within itself,” he said. “North Hollywood, as far as I’m concerned, has more in common with east Hollywood than it has with Woodland Hills. With all due respect to the Valley, which is where I grew up, it’s the city--this is one city.

“The schools that I will be representing in the Valley are very similar to the schools I currently represent. They’re schools with high immigrant representation; they’re year-round schools. I absolutely deny that there will be any deficiency of attention or service” to Valley schools, said Horton, who, like Quezada, comes up for reelection in 1995.

He joined the board last year, taking the seat originally held by former board president and Van Nuys teacher Jackie Goldberg. Horton, who lives in Echo Park, is the board’s first openly gay representative and spearheaded the drive to make condoms available free on all high school campuses.

Leaders of the 31st District PTSA were upset with Horton after a school board meeting last Monday when the board voted to support the redistricting plan. Parents who gave an opposing presentation complained that Horton then attacked them with a vitriolic speech that branded them as racists for objecting to the remapping. They also faulted Quezada for not repudiating his remarks.

For her part, Quezada, a Highland Park resident who recently lost a bid for a congressional seat, commended the “sense of neighborhood” shown by Valley activists but noted that concerns of Latino parents in the southern part of her district match those of Latino parents in the northeastern pocket of the Valley.

“There are more commonalities than there are differences,” she said. “With the bulk of the students being Latinos, I know their issues, such as bilingual education, parent involvement, accessibility of the school to the community, a stronger tie between the home and the school. And they’re issues I’ve already been working on.”

In 1987, after she was first elected to the board, Quezada quickly became the standard-bearer of a bilingual education master plan that was later adopted by the district, the nation’s second-largest school system. Quezada herself, a Mexican immigrant who was chosen school board president last Monday on the 26th anniversary of her arrival in the United States, learned English as a second language.

She has also attempted to boost parent participation--especially among Latinos--in campus decision-making as part of a districtwide effort to grant each school more autonomy.

But the redistricting plan that installed Quezada as representative for the northeast Valley brought objections from other minorities, particularly black parents in the Pacoima area who were anxious, fearing that their needs would be overlooked. A number of black organizations publicly opposed the new map.

Quezada pledged to work on behalf of all the schools in her district, although she acknowledged she has been an outspoken advocate for Latino children.

“That is not to say that I care about bilingual education to the exclusion of mainstream education,” she said. “It’s just that, given the demographics of the district and that I’m the only Hispanic on the board, I get to be that spokesperson. As far as my schools are concerned, I serve the needs of my schools, whoever is in the schools.”

Tony Alcala, a Latino parent activist from Sun Valley who has helped lead the coalition against the redistricting plan, said Quezada’s and Horton’s professed desire to be accessible to Valley parents is encouraging. But the new boundaries have nonetheless snatched away the comfort of having someone who represents them actually live among them.

“They should keep in mind that they represent these communities but weren’t elected by these communities,” he said. “In order for them to gain the confidence of the communities, they’ll really have to be there and provide everything we need for our kids. That’s going to be the challenge for them.”