Parents Begin Bid to Change School Lines : Secession: The proposal would take 555 children in Fox Hills from the Los Angeles Unified district and put them on campuses in Culver City. Opposition is expected.

Culver City resident Janey Campbell must apply for an inter-district transfer permit each year in order to send her son to a public school in her own city.

And she faces the prospect of additional red tape a few years down the road if she wants to do the same with her younger child, now 20 months old. So Campbell has decided to take a stand.

She is heading a movement of Fox Hills residents who want to break away from the Los Angeles Unified School District and become part of the Culver City Unified School District.

“I decided it’s my fight to fight,” she said. “There are a lot of people here that are interested in this movement. . . . It’s going to catch on.”

Fox Hills is the only neighborhood of Culver City that is not in the Culver City school district. Situated at the southern tip of the city, it contained mostly undeveloped land when Culver City annexed it in 1964. The Culver school district did not bother at the time to redraw its boundaries to include Fox Hills, so the unpopulated land remained in the Los Angeles school district.

Now, however, Fox Hills contains the big Fox Hills Mall, a large office development called Corporate Pointe and about 5,000 residents.

Prompted by the urgings of Campbell and some of her neighbors, the Culver City school board voted unanimously last week to allow Fox Hills into the district. District Supt. Curtis Rethmeyer said he is putting together a formal request to Los Angeles Unified to agree to the transfer of territory. If the Los Angeles school board approves, it will be a quick and easy process.

History suggests, however, that it will not be.

An attempt in 1984 to move Fox Hills into the Culver City district went all the way to Sacramento before failing. Petitions were circulated and staff and residents appeared before several boards and committees.

One reason the State Board of Education ruled in favor of Los Angeles Unified was due to the declining enrollments of the 1980s, Rethmeyer said. Westside schools were closing for lack of students.

But Rethmeyer is optimistic that the climate has changed and that chances for victory are better this time. For one thing, the Los Angeles school district is bursting at the seams.

Furthermore, he said: “There’s generally a more open attitude toward crossing district boundaries. School districts have more open enrollment, allowing parents to send their children to the school they want. . . . There’s a greater acceptance of self-determination.”

Culver City, meanwhile, has a closed school, El Marino Elementary, not far from Fox Hills that could be reopened if funds were made available, Rethmeyer said.

Los Angeles school board member Mark Slavkin, who represents the Westside, said he philosophically supports the idea of parents being able to choose where to send their children. He said he cannot comment on the Fox Hills request, however, until the staff determines the transfer’s effect on racial balance, which the district is mandated to maintain.

“If we consent to an arrangement that would remove a number of white students, for example, from a school, the district would be participating in a segregative action,” Slavkin said.

Culver City school officials said they had no current data showing how many children or families would be affected by the proposed switch. When the transfer was attempted in the mid-’80s, there were about 300 school-age children in Fox Hills. Most Fox Hills children attend one of three Los Angeles Unified schools, all in Westchester: Cowan Avenue Elementary, Orville Wright Middle and Westchester High.

According to the U.S. Census, the 1990 population of the Fox Hills census tract, which roughly coincides with the area that would be annexed, was 5,094, including 555 children under 18. The ethnic breakdown was 51% Anglo, 7% Latino, 35% black and 6% Asian.

Marc Forgy, secretary of the Los Angeles County Office of Education committee on school district reorganization, predicted a long road ahead for Fox Hills residents.

Out of the many requests to secede from Los Angeles schools that the committee has seen, Forgy recalled only one that was successful. And that was probably because it involved mostly undeveloped land, he said.

“(Los Angeles) will probably deny it,” he said. “Historically, that has been their posture. . . . I’ve seen many districts battle it out to the bitter end and lose.”

Fox Hills resident Campbell says her neighborhood would benefit from annexation in a number of ways. Most important, residents would feel like a part of the community instead of like “stepchildren.”

Students would be able to participate more fully in recreation department programs, which are geared toward the schedules of Culver City schools. It would be less complicated for the city to fund district programs if the city and school district boundaries were identical.

Culver City school board member Julie Lugo Cerra said she strongly supports the annexation of Fox Hills to the district.

“If Fox Hills wants to be a part of Culver City schools, it’s our responsibility to help them,” she said.

Fox Hills Schools Controversy

The Fox Hills area of Culver City, shown in dark gray, wants to secede from the Los Angeles Unified School District and become part of the Culver City Unified School District.