SANTA CLARITA / ANTELOPE VALLEY : District Ends Handouts of Anti-Voucher Flyers

Ordered to present both sides of the issue or none at all, the Westside Union School District chose the latter.

Supt. George (Bud) Reams said his 5,300-student district in the west Antelope Valley has stopped providing literature opposing the controversial school voucher initiative.

The move came in response to a temporary restraining order issued Oct. 21 by a Los Angeles Superior Court judge that said the district may not use its resources to advocate only one side of a state ballot initiative.

“We decided just to remove it all, from all of the schools,” Reams said. “The thing we’re most concerned about was any further controversy.”

Westside was one of six California school districts, along with the state Department of Education, accused in an Oct. 19 lawsuit of using public funds to campaign against Proposition 174.

Judge Diane Wayne issued the order last week only against the Westside district, saying that in other districts, such as Los Angeles Unified, administrators had taken corrective action when informed of incidents when only one side of the voucher issue was presented.

Reams, who has been outspoken in his opposition to the voucher initiative, said he and other administrators decided to keep Proposition 174 literature out of the schools because voters appear to have already made up their minds on the matter.

“When you look at what the surveys have indicated so far,” he said, “it just isn’t worth any further hassle.

“If there was a significant reason for continuing, we would have.”

Bruce Adelstein, the Los Angeles attorney who filed the lawsuit on behalf of a parent and taxpayers, said he was less concerned with how Westside responded to the restraining order as long as they did.

“We don’t think that basically the school--school offices--is the appropriate place to be distributing campaign material,” he said. “If they had decided to be informative on both sides we wouldn’t have had a problem with it. So long as they’re evenhanded.”

Reams said the district placed the anti-voucher literature on the counters of its 10 school offices after consulting with its attorney. The attorney said the district could display the material as long as it made counter space available for pro-voucher literature.

“It never came,” Reams said.