ELECTIONS / L.A. SCHOOL BOARD : West Valley Is New Battleground

The race for the Los Angeles school board district that stretches from Porter Ranch to Los Angeles International Airport pits a popular incumbent against two San Fernando Valley challengers in a potential battle of the “Wests”--the West Valley versus the Westside.

Trustee Mark Slavkin, 31, seeking a second term on the Board of Education, enjoys strong support on the Westside, where he lives and which he represented exclusively until last summer’s reapportionment dumped him into the newly configured District 4.

Hoping to unhorse Slavkin are Douglas Lasken, an elementary school teacher, and Judy Solkovits, a past president of the Los Angeles teachers union. Both of them are West Valley residents who hope to siphon away some of the teacher backing that helped propel Slavkin to victory in the last election as the seven-member board’s youngest representative.

On paper, the Westside wunderkind still seems to hold an edge: 60% of the electorate in District 4 lives south of Mulholland Drive.

But Lasken, of Woodland Hills, believes that Slavkin is vulnerable in the April 20 primary, especially in a year where dissatisfaction with the Los Angeles Unified School District is running high. The nation’s second-largest school system has taken a loud and public beating in recent months over issues ranging from a threatened teachers strike to the on-campus shooting deaths of two students.

“He’s the incumbent,” said Lasken, 47, who teaches second grade at a Hollywood elementary school. “He’s been there for four years, and when you talk to people--and this includes the Westside--they’re not happy. He’s got the George Bush problem.”

Lasken and Solkovits, who once headed United Teachers-Los Angeles, are counting heavily on teacher support in their campaigns. They note that Slavkin, who voted for a deeply unpopular 12% pay cut for teachers, did not regain the UTLA endorsement that he acknowledges helped boost his political fortunes as a fresh-faced newcomer four years ago.

“There’s an advantage I have, having been a president of UTLA,” said Solkovits, 58, an 18-year teaching veteran who left the profession in 1984 because she was “fed up” with the school district. Although now a business consultant in Northridge, “as far as teachers are concerned, I still think I have a leg up on most people.”

However, Slavkin points out, his opponents also did not win the formal backing of UTLA, the district’s largest union.

“I think it’s telling that the former UTLA president, Judy Solkovits, didn’t get their endorsement, nor did Doug Lasken, a current teacher,” Slavkin said. But “there’s just not a lot of teacher support to tap this year,” he added, citing the low morale among instructors, who last month accepted a 10% slash in their salaries.

For Slavkin, there is the challenge of raising his profile north of the Sepulveda Pass. A recent community forum in Van Nuys illustrated the problem when his name was the only one misspelled on a nameplate (“Slavin”) among the seven school board candidates vying to represent different parts of the Valley.

“Strategically a lot of our time and resources are being placed in the Valley. The name recognition is not as great for me as in the Westside,” said Slavkin, who reported $5,094 in campaign contributions as of March 6, nearly all of them from individuals on the Westside.

As early as last October, months before election papers could be filed, Slavkin made a foray into the West Valley, convening a “town hall meeting” denounced by some as a blatantly political maneuver in a district that technically is still served by board member Julie Korenstein.

Lasken criticized the incumbent for supporting last July’s redistricting that cost the Valley one of its two school board seats--a plan Slavkin said he ultimately latched onto only when it became clear that maps preserving the two Valley seats as well as a Westside seat stood no chance of approval by the Los Angeles City Council.

The controversy over the new boundaries revived a movement to break up the mammoth school district. That issue is likely to resonate most with voters in the West Valley--the core of support for splitting up the district. The three District 4 candidates have staked out completely different positions on the issue.

Lasken--whose war chest boasts $5,000 from his father--supports carving up the district into smaller pieces, with the Valley divided between at least two separate school systems. But for the Westside, “I certainly wouldn’t foist a breakaway on West Los Angeles if the majority of people were against it.”

Slavkin wants to eliminate the central school board and empower each of the district’s 49 high school “complexes,” which are composed of a high school and its feeder junior high and elementary schools.

Critics note that this month Slavkin voted to oppose a district breakup. But he said the motion calls on the Board of Education to take a stand against breakup plans “that do not focus on improving the educational environment and options of our students.”

“The proposal before us had nothing in it I couldn’t agree to,” he said.

For her part, Solkovits opposes splitting up the school system, although she--like Slavkin and, to some extent, Lasken--supports the recently adopted LEARN reforms that would decentralize authority to individual schools.

“To focus on saying we’re going to break this district up is, to me, a really wrong way to focus our energies now,” Solkovits said. “Perhaps sometime in the future that will be the only resolution, but the reality is that it will take a long time and a lot of money to accomplish the goal.”

Her opposition to a breakup mirrors that of the Los Angeles teachers union, but Solkovits said she would not be a tool of the union if she is elected. Critics of UTLA have charged that the group exerts too much influence over the school board.

“I do believe in unionism,” said Solkovits, who reported $400 in money received, all of it from herself. “But as far as I’m concerned, I advocate for children and I advocate for teachers. I do not advocate for a union.”

All three candidates agree that many issues transcend geographical boundaries, affecting the entire district. Each pledges to make school safety a priority.

Solkovits has also called for a more extensive audit of district finances than the one now underway. Slavkin has introduced a motion granting high school complexes the authority to adopt their own calendars so that schools can drop the year-round schedule instituted districtwide two years ago and abhorred by many Valley and Westside parents.

But Lasken characterized the move as a naked attempt by Slavkin to score political points heading into the primary.