Divide, Reform the L. A. School District

The Times has dutifully presented the expected opposing points of view on an independent school district for the San Fernando Valley (“School District for Valley is Opposed,” Times Valley Edition, Nov. 20). These issues deserve response.

It is arguable that a Valley district of 190,000 students is still too large, but we have to start somewhere. Once legislation is in place that will permit formation of the San Fernando Valley Unified School District, the Valley, as well as the remainder of the Los Angeles district, will have the enabling legislation in place to further divide and achieve optimum size.

We have to walk before we can run.

Mark Slavkin would be correct in pointing out that “It is a simplistic bumper-sticker approach to a very complex set of issues” if the goal was simply to split up the Los Angeles district and maintain the system in its current form. But he overlooks the ultimate goal, a total restructuring of the status quo.

V.A.L.U.E. believes that we will be most successful in reforming and improving our education system if we have smaller, more manageable districts that bring the decision-making closer to the people, are more responsive to community needs and are accountable to the neighborhood parents, students and teachers who support them.

The teachers union position to keep the district whole and restructure it is an impossible dream. The current district bureaucracy will seek to perpetuate itself and will resist systemic change. True restructuring of education in Los Angeles requires restructuring of the district itself.

The Latino concerns also are unwarranted. A Valley district would still be heavily Latino, and Latino representation on the Board of Education would be protected in the Valley by the federal Voting Rights Act, as it is in the Los Angeles district.

Contrary to the allegations of Art Barragan, the drive to create a Valley school district is absolutely not racially motivated. V.A.L.U.E. takes great pride in being a multiracial, multiethnic coalition, working for improvement in education for all our students.

JILL REISS

Northridge

Reiss wrote as vice chairperson of Valley Advocates for Local Unified Education, which favors breaking up the school district.