Issue: What Do You Think of the Plan in the San Fernando Valley to Split the L.A. Unified School District?

Sal Castro, History teacher, Belmont High, west of Downtown

The whole attempt to break up the district is because of racism. All kids will lose from this issue. There is nothing at all being said about academic achievement right now. (Nothing being said) if breaking up the district is going to improve the reading scores of the kids, is going to get more kids into college, that kind of thing. They’re not talking academics, they’re just talking racism. They, the whites, want to be able to control their school district. They are very fearful of African-American and Latino leadership. They are fearful of losing power. It’s the insecurity of the minority white population.

Anel Laj, Student, Belmont High

I don’t think that it is a very good idea because you’re going to have separation. One section of the city is going to have better opportunities than others. It would be like separate but equal. But it won’t be equal because it’s separate.

Louise Browning, Assistant principal of student services, Garfield High School in East Los Angeles

(Browning is the administrative representative to the Los Angeles Education Alliance for Restructuring Now Commission.) I think despite the unhappiness in the district, there is a lot of goodwill on the part of the employees to work together for the better of the kids’ education. People can work out the kinds of problems that divide us. If we stay together we can do more than if we break it apart. We need more oneness in the city and not more separateness.

Jill Reiss, Vice chairwoman of Valley Advocates , for Local Unified Education, Northridge We want the LAUSD to be broken into smaller, more manageable units. Right now it’s so large that it is like a runaway train completely unable to serve the needs of all the communities from Granada Hills to San Pedro. The educational needs of the children are not being met. It’s important to give the schools back to the communities and empower the communities to educate their children. Everyone stands to benefit from this.