Tiny District Faces Big Hurdles : Education: Soledad-Agua Dulce schools find life after secession from the Antelope Valley High area is beset with financial and other problems.

If smaller school districts are the answer to solving education problems, as proponents of breaking up the giant Los Angeles district contend, that’s news to the people who live in rural Acton and Agua Dulce.

With only three schools and 1,660 students, the tiny Soledad-Agua Dulce Union School District is one of the smallest in Los Angeles County. So it must be a picture of peace and tranquillity unlike the behemoth Los Angeles district that is the nation’s second largest, right?

Not.

Although no students are shooting guns on campus and no one’s proposing metal detectors yet, the rural north county district still finds itself beset by problems similar to those faced by its big city counterparts, despite its size.

The kindergarten-through-eighth grade district has a treasury this year that’s virtually bust, a teachers union that’s talking strike, and feuding community factions. Amid it all, the district also can’t seem to decide whether to get into the high school business this fall.

Several hours into a night school board meeting last week, district Supt. Tom Brown closed his eyes, bowed his head and let a microphone rest against his forehead while the debate went on around him. “I’m exhausted. We have one of these every week,” said Brown, sounding overwhelmed.

Set in the mountains between the San Fernando and Antelope valleys, the school district serves two comparatively quiet communities where dirt roads, horse ranches and Western garb are the norm. At school board meetings, the board president even recognizes all the speakers by name.

But the district has been anything but quiet since last November when residents voted 3 to 1 to secede from the Antelope Valley Union High School District effective July 1 and become a “unified” district, supposedly with its own high school program.

Behind the move was local residents’ desire to end busing of their high-school-age children to the high school district’s closest campuses in Palmdale, campuses located several hours away by bus where gangs and violence have become increasing problems. “Keep our kids at home,” residents said.

That simple desire has turned out to be anything but simple, however. The financial demands of starting a high school program, the reductions in school funding caused by the recession and a three-year contract that gave employees hefty raises are threatening to swamp the district.

One problem is that the high school district has no existing facilities within the elementary district that can be transferred to the new unified district. So the new district must look to build and open its own high school, a costly task that will take several years at best.

In the meantime, parents and students are divided over two interim options: paying the high school district to continue handling the ninth through 12th grades for 1993-94, or adding a bare-bones ninth-grade program at the district’s current High Desert Middle School in Acton.

The district’s school board postponed deciding the issue for the second time Thursday night, finally agreeing to ask county school officials to review the somewhat uncertain cost projections of both plans. The school board is set to consider the issue again this Thursday.

Ardent unification proponents argue the district must begin its own high school program this fall to keep faith with voters. The district’s teachers union wants a delay of a year or two, saying there hasn’t been enough time or planning to make a local ninth-grade program a success.

Based on the district’s financial outlook, it’s not clear the district can afford either choice. A recent district analysis predicted a local ninth-grade program starting this fall would lose $219,000, whereas contracting with the high school would be a $175,000 loss in the first year.

The district already owes its employees an estimated $332,000 through this July for a 7% salary raise that took effect in the fall of 1991 but was suspended in early 1992 as the district began to run out of money. If unpaid for another year, the debt would grow by an additional $216,000.

District officials concede that paying the raise now--the final step of a three-year contract with 6%, 7% and 7% increases--would bankrupt the district. Thus far, district employees have agreed to the deferral, but the district still has not shown how it would find the money to pay them.

Because of the looming costs of the high school options and the salary obligation, the district recently notified county education officials that it may face a budget shortfall in the coming years. By state law, school districts cannot operate with a deficit, but must cut expenses or raise more money to balance their budgets.

The district is already at an impasse with its teachers over their demand for a union shop in their contract for the coming school year. And teachers, apart from the high school dispute, already complain about having to vacuum and clean their own classrooms and take out trash because of staff shortages.

Yet another dispute erupted last week when the teachers union changed its name to reflect the name planned for the new unified district, the Acton-Agua Dulce Unified School District. But when the school board balked at recognizing the new group as the successor to the old unit covered by the present contract, teachers went away talking strike.

Times correspondent Blaine Halley contributed to this report.