School District Secession Drive Gains Momentum : Education: The local Parent Teacher Student Assn. board votes to end opposition to a split. A larger panel must ratify the decision.

In a sign that the latest drive to secede from the Los Angeles Unified School District may be gaining momentum, the board of directors of the 31st District Parent Teacher Student Assn., which covers the San Fernando Valley, voted unanimously Tuesday to suspend its historic opposition to a district breakup.

Although the action requires formal ratification from the association’s larger executive body during an emergency meeting scheduled for Thursday, Vice President Cecelia Mansfield said the board of directors represented the toughest hurdle to clear and that she foresees no obstacles to approval.

“I can’t imagine that the executive board will not concur,” Mansfield said after the board’s daylong meeting Tuesday. “I don’t have any reason to anticipate that there will be a problem.”

The board decided to vacate its decade-old position after the recent redistricting brouhaha, which ended with the elimination of one of the two school board seats solely representing the Valley.

The redrawing of the district has pushed the idea of splitting the sprawling district back into the limelight among parents and community activists. Proponents contend that a separate district would spell greater responsiveness to the Valley’s educational needs.

Suspension of the PTSA’s opposition would allow individual parents and campus PTSA groups to support splitting of the school district if they choose, which is currently forbidden under the organization’s rules, Mansfield said. She added that the 31st District has already received “dozens of calls” from parents who want to help with the secession effort.

The organization adopted its opposing position in 1981 after a study showed that smaller districts created by a breakup could be challenged on legal grounds, especially with respect to ethnic composition.

A task force of the organization reviewed that position last year, but despite agreeing that the Valley’s demographics and other circumstances have changed over the last decade, it shelved the issue to await more information.

Since then, the organization has been compiling more statistics to see if a split from the district could meet rigorous standards imposed by county and state education authorities.

“We have to be sure we can meet the criteria,” Mansfield said. “That’s what’s important for our study, and that’s where we’ll be going in the next few days. . . . It’d be irresponsible to mislead people about that.”

Tuesday’s recommendation by the PTSA’s board of directors would free parents to continue working with other members of the coalition that fought the remap plan--such as the Valley’s United Chambers of Commerce--that have now taken up the cause of splitting the school district.