PERSPECTIVE ON LOS ANGELES SCHOOLS : Stop the District -- We Want Off : Let the Valley govern its own schools. L.A. Unified is too big and too bureaucratized to respond to local needs.

People become disenfranchised when their voices are not heard, when their concerns are ignored, when they pay their fair share of taxes but do not get their fair share of representation.

The Los Angeles Unified School District covers more than 700 square miles from Chatsworth to San Pedro and serves 640,000 K-12 children and several hundred-thousand adult-school students. After being a member of the Board of Education for more than five years, I have come to the realization that this district is simply too big to be manageable, too entrenched with old bureaucratic ideas to be restructured and totally incapable of serving close to 1 million human beings.

If the San Fernando Valley had its own school district, we would be able to integrate our schools and prioritize our needs. Most important, we would not have to contend with a downtown bureaucracy making decisions for the children, parents, teachers and principals of the Valley. Those of us who were involved in the recent school-district redistricting fiasco learned an important lesson: Beware of politicians who speak from both sides of their mouths. We found this to be the case with both Los Angeles City Council members and fellow school-board members. Individuals who were supposed to be political leaders were more concerned with saving their political derrieres than in making sure that there was fair and equitable representation for children and parents of the San Fernando Valley.

We learned that we need to take control of our lives, and that it is essential to have the decision-making power to do so. We learned that politicians who lived outside the Valley did not represent our concerns or our needs. We learned not to be fooled by those who say that the Valley will have better representation now that it has been fragmented into four sections with only one out of the seven school-board districts wholly in the Valley.

I have fought for too many years against board members who called Valley schools, parents, teachers and children a variety of names--”country club schools,” “racists”--and who went out of their way to make sure that San Fernando Valley schools did not get their fair share. Some of those board members now profess that because they represent parts of the Valley, they have turned over a new leaf and now understand our needs.

It is time for the San Fernando Valley to have its own school district. The Los Angeles Unified School District will continue to muddle through restructuring and try to put on a new coat of paint, but the only thing that will truly bring about a positive change for Valley children is the creation of our own district. Remember, the closer we bring government to the people, the better government performs.

And let us not be fooled by those who say that a new San Fernando Valley district would become more segregated. The student population would be 73% minority. A district that is 87% minority and 13% Anglo is indeed segregated, and that is what we currently have in the Los Angeles Unified School District.

We are fortunate in the San Fernando Valley to be able to truly integrate our schools, and development of a new school district would give us an exceptional opportunity to create an integrated experience for all children. As important as it is to learn to read, write and express oneself, it is equally important for multiethnic groups of children to learn to work and play with one another.

Beware of political leaders who will come up with a thousand different excuses to prohibit the San Fernando Valley from forming its own school district; their intent will be to maintain their own political power base. Unfortunately, the welfare and well-being of the children will not be their primary concern.

If we had our own school district, just think--we might even be able to find creative ways to install much-needed air conditioning and reopen some closed schools.