Breaking Up L.A. School District

A small article (May 17) has direct relevance citywide to the school breakup issue. This read in part, “At Gardena High School . . . Taggers--youths who use spray-painted graffiti to identify themselves or mark their turf--were invited to create a mural on campus celebrating the school’s ethnic groups.” The piece continued, “It’s all part of a concerted, 2-year-old effort by the Los Angeles Unified School District to prepare students to deal with diversity. . . .”

This is exactly the kind of crap we want to get rid of in the schools. A Valley school district would never support the acts of these pathetic criminals who ruin other people’s property to the tune of millions of dollars. There would be no “invitation” to create a mural. We don’t consider them “youths” identifying themselves. The only thing they’d get from us is a call to the police, a bucket and a bunch of rags, and a lot of after-school detention time to clean up every scrap of property they vandalized. If the people in Gardena want to honor these gangbanging miscreants, let them. We in the Valley don’t want to spend our time or school dollars on this type of “project.”

ELLEN FITZMAURICE, Sherman Oaks