Realtors Mobilizing in Drive to Remap School District

Arguably there are few factors that affect property values as much as the quality of schools in a neighborhood.

Public schools haven’t been earning a satisfactory grade for years in the estimation of most parents, teachers and students. And so, it should come as little surprise that the San Fernando Valley Board of Realtors has involved itself in a citywide ballot initiative to remap the boundaries of the Los Angeles Unified School District.

The initiative is being led by the Coalition Against Unfair School Elections (CAUSE), which was formed earlier this year when the City Council approved a reapportionment plan that created a second Latino-majority seat. In the process, the council took away one of the two all-Valley seats on the Los Angeles school board.

Real estate agents and brokers are being urged to help gather the 48,000 signatures needed by the end of this year to qualify the initiative for the June ballot. The initiative would, if passed, again guarantee the Valley two seats on the school board. Supporters include the realtors, the United Chambers of Commerce and the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn. “We need to get involved if L.A. is going to be an attractive place to live,” said Jay Tennen, a coordinator of the Valley Board of Realtors’ petition efforts and a broker at Jay Tennen & Associates in Woodland Hills. “Whether you own property or you’re a renter, you’re affected.”

A decline in schools--and even the perception of decline--inevitably will affect home-buying choices, Tennen said. “It gets down to economics. For the few people who can afford to live in an area with excellent schools, it’s obvious what their choice will be.” That choice, for many Angelenos, has been to leave Los Angeles, and even California.

“As realtors in the San Fernando Valley, we’re also residents. We’re concerned about education,” Tennen said. “Too many people have sat back quietly as the Valley has become the stepchild of L.A. education.”

What Tennen and his co-coordinator, Barbara Baerg, really want is to see the LAUSD split up, creating at the very least a distinct San Fernando Valley school district. Such a split isn’t about to happen yet, so many Valley real estate interests have to content themselves with keeping two all-Valley seats on the LAUSD board.

The Valley’s realtors are being urged to circulate petitions in their neighborhoods, at open houses, brokerage office meetings, houses of worship and service organizations. “If you don’t have a good community, how are you going to be successful in the real estate business?” Tennen asked. “We need to nurture students and get them interested in their communities. If we don’t, we’re not going to have anything.”

“Our school system is so awful that it’s often difficult to sell houses in the Valley,” said Rana Linka, owner-broker at Century-21 Rana Linka & Co. in Woodland Hills. “The quality of education is very important to real estate. When you sell a house, you’re also selling the quality of the neighborhood and schools,” Linka said. “If we can do something about education, it will make a difference for real estate.”

Linka wants more than just two Valley board members at the LAUSD. “I would like to see the Valley separate from L.A. in every respect,” Linka said. That would mean creating a separate school system and maybe even a separate city.”

Supporters of the proposed initiative say they’re merely advocating that the Valley get its fair share of resources, but not everyone agrees. Why should the Valley get two out of seven LAUSD board seats when there are other parts of the city that also want better representation? Latinos have been underrepresented too, and the City Council’s new map was created to guarantee another Latino seat. And are some Valley residents just trying to seal themselves off from problems just over the hill?

Linka countered that the proposed initiative and talk of a separate school district is indeed a reflection of self-interest but not of selfishness. “Lots of good people have been leaving the Valley,” she said. “You either correct things or you move.”

Baerg, who is an agent at Coldwell Banker in east Sherman Oaks and chairman of the Valley Board of Realtors’ Governmental Affairs committee, defended the involvement of real estate brokers and agents in the LAUSD issue.

“We feel that homeowners from the Valley deserve representation,” she said. That’s why, she added, the Valley Board of Realtors voted unanimously to get involved.

The board also voted to support a breakup of the LAUSD. “This is the first step. Eventually, we hope the San Fernando Valley has its own school system,” she said. “We’re not considering the property values. We just believe the people of the San Fernando Valley deserve better.”