Tempers Flare Over Proposed District Breakup : Schools: L.A. board member Jeff Horton clashes with Roberti aide and concerned parents over legislation.

Los Angeles Unified school board members clashed with concerned parents and each other Monday night in a community forum held to discuss a bill to break the mammoth school district into smaller units.

The meeting at Van Nuys Middle School was sponsored by the Greater Sherman Oaks Chamber of Commerce. Because it was billed as the first time school board officials, an aide to state Sen. David A. Roberti (D-Van Nuys) and teachers union representatives would gather in public to discuss the Roberti bill, hundreds of residents were anticipated to attend but only about 80 showed up.

School board member Jeff Horton acknowledged that the district is in serious trouble, but said a breakup would cause more problems than it would solve.

But another panelist, Mel Iloman, a top Roberti aide, said that carving up the district would make administrators more accountable for the use of school funds and encourage more input from parents and teachers.

Horton and Iloman spent almost two hours discussing Roberti’s proposal to break up the district.

“We have seen that smaller is better,” Iloman said. Horton retorted: “Name a district.”

His challenge drew angry responses from the crowd.

School board member Julie Korenstein rose from the audience to criticize Horton. “We’re talking about representation, about local decision-making,” Korenstein said. “I believe it has become absolutely impossible to manage a district the size of L.A. Unified. It just cannot be done anymore.”

Helen Bernstein, head of United Teachers-Los Angeles, was also scheduled to be on the panel but canceled to attend a meeting in which union officials discussed a potential strike vote.

Secession advocates, such as Roberti, say the financially troubled school district is simply too big, bloated and bureaucratic to address the needs of its students.

Under Roberti’s proposal, a commission would be established to develop a formula for breaking up the 640,000-student district into at least seven smaller districts. If approved, the commission’s plan would be put before voters in the November, 1994, general election.

The measure was approved by a 7-4 vote in the Senate Education Committee on April 14, despite the strong objections of some minority groups. The Senate Appropriations Committee is expected to review the proposal within a month.

Even with the split vote, Roberti is expected to win significant support for the bill when it goes before the Senate’s 40 members in the coming months.

In response to criticism, Roberti has already announced plans to revise his bill in an attempt to minimize the fears of minority groups and other opponents. He proposes to limit the size of new school districts to 100,000 students, distribute resources equally, take desegregation cases into account and keep all current labor agreements intact.

Nevertheless, the proposed breakup has come under fire from powerful lawmakers, including Assembly Speaker Willie Brown. Brown said the bill would create segregated schools such as those he attended in Texas in the 1940s.