Plan for Separate School District in Valley Draws Fire : Education: Critics say secession would harm Latino students. Roberti promises talks before introducing legislation.

Reacting to a promise by a top state lawmaker to fight for creation of a separate San Fernando Valley school district, activists representing political, educational and parent interests throughout the city charged Thursday that secession would harm minority students without producing the radical restructuring that Los Angeles schools need.

State Sen. David A. Roberti (D-Van Nuys) reiterated Thursday that he intends to introduce a bill by the end of February to clear the way for the Valley to separate from the mammoth Los Angeles Unified School District.

But Roberti, who had announced his support to a meeting of Valley parents Wednesday night, cautioned that “an awful lot of conversations . . . have to take place” to gauge public opinion and answer difficult questions surrounding school integration and redistribution of property and students.

“We have to put it on the fast track,” said Roberti, the powerful president pro tem of the Senate. “However, before I put it in, I want to talk to a lot of people--obviously education activists in the Valley, but for that matter in the rest of the district as well, because it affects them too.”

But several school board members, the teachers union, Latino activists and some parents already have criticized the proposed split as an imperfect or even invidious solution to the problems of a giant district that now serves 640,000 students over an area of 708 square miles.

“It is a simplistic bumper-sticker approach to a very complex set of issues,” said Los Angeles school board member Mark Slavkin.

For many--though by no means all--Latinos, a Valley withdrawal would appear to reverse gains made this summer in increasing their power on the Los Angeles school board.

A reapportionment plan adopted in July gave heavily Latino neighborhoods control over a second seat on the Los Angeles school board. But the reapportionment met with vociferous opposition from Valley residents, who contended that the Valley will suffer from being carved up among four representatives, only one of whom is responsible to Valley voters alone.

The redistricting flap revived the movement to break up the Los Angeles school district--an idea that has been discussed for 30 years.

Marshall Diaz, chairman of the Latino Redistricting Coalition, said that although he favors local autonomy over schools, a Valley school board would be controlled primarily by Anglo voters. No Latino representation could be ensured, he said, and the needs of Latino students--who would still form a majority in a Valley district--could go ignored.

“This whole issue about breaking up could take power away from us. . . . They’re going to dilute our power that we have legally established” on the current board of education, Diaz said. “We’re going to oppose this legislation.”

“Coming on the heels of redistricting, a lot of it’s racially motivated,” said Art Barragan, president of the Valley chapter of the Assn. of Mexican-American Educators.

Robert L. Scott, head of a new coalition devoted to the breakaway effort, denied that the campaign was a maneuver to reduce Latino political clout.

“There’s no move afoot to try to change the basic formula of avoiding fragmentation of minority communities,” Scott said. “Everything would be done to allow for the maximization of minority representation.”

But others describe his group’s goal of a separate district as a cosmetic solution that would not achieve the radical reform they say is necessary for real change. A Valley district of about 190,000 students and 177 schools would still be the state’s second largest and, some say, would simply create its own bloated bureaucracy unresponsive to the needs of individual schools.

“This doesn’t go far enough in decentralizing the district,” said Pam Bruns, an active parent on the Westside, where there also has been occasional talk of forming a separate district.

“It’s more than just smaller units,” said Mike Roos, head of LEARN, a coalition of business, school and community leaders hoping to overhaul the Los Angeles school system. “You have to absolutely restructure the way you deliver education.”

Officials of United Teachers-Los Angeles also voiced opposition to secession.

“UTLA’s position all along has been to keep the district whole and restructure it,” union spokeswoman Catherine Carey said.

Only one school board member has endorsed creation of a separate Valley district--Julie Korenstein, whose political base is in the Valley but whose district was dismembered by the reapportionment.

Backers of Valley secession hope the legislation Roberti promised to introduce will allow them to bypass formidable administrative and procedural requirements by county and state authorities.