CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS / PROPOSITION 187 : L.A. Teachers Sign Pledges to Ignore Measure : Educators would be forced to verify students’ citizenship, organizer charges. Initiative’s co-author says that isn’t true.

A sheaf of pledges from teachers who say they won’t comply with Proposition 187 filled Steve Zimmer’s arms Tuesday as he stood outside an Echo Park elementary school, using the threat of lawbreaking to drum up opposition to the measure.

Teachers would be asked to determine the status of students and report those who were in the country illegally if Proposition 187 passes, Zimmer said at a news conference. And that, said the teacher at Marshall High in the Los Feliz area, would shatter the essential bond of trust between teacher and pupil.

“It is more of a crime to enforce this than to break the law,” Zimmer said outside Logan Street Elementary, where most of the teachers signed pledges.

The initiative on the Nov. 8 ballot would bar illegal immigrants from public education but does not specify who would be responsible for enforcing the law. It only says that school districts would have to verify the legal status of new students by Jan. 1 and of continuing students and their parents by a year later. Students found to be illegal immigrants would have 45 days to prove otherwise and 90 more days to leave school.

Zimmer, who showed off the signatures of 1,000 Los Angeles-area teachers opposed to the measure, said he and others feel that verification would trickle down to them.

“We will be on the front lines,” said Zimmer, who recounted forming On Campus--a teachers’ anti-Proposition 187 movement--in his living room after one of his students dropped out of school citing fears about the proposition.

An author of the initiative, which would also bar illegal immigrants from other public services, said Zimmer and the other pledge signers had misunderstood the measure’s intent. School administrators, not teachers, would be expected to verify students’ immigration status, said Alan Nelson, former commissioner of the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service.

“I think some of this pledging not to go along with the law goes a little far--that’s anarchy,” Nelson said. “But no one’s asking them to do some of the things they’re saying we are.”

Zimmer said Tuesday that he was prepared to be arrested for refusing to enforce Proposition 187, but acknowledged that he could not speak for other teachers. On Monday a state Department of Education spokeswoman said county prosecutors could file misdemeanor charges against educators who fail to enforce the law.

Many public school officials and teachers throughout the state, including the members of the Los Angeles Board of Education, have announced their opposition to Proposition 187. The state Board of Education declined to take a position, although Gov. Pete Wilson, who appoints its members, has endorsed the measure. Both candidates for state superintendent of public instruction--Wilson’s Education Secretary Maureen DiMarco and Assemblywoman Delaine Eastin (D-Fremont)--oppose Proposition 187.

United Teachers-Los Angeles, the union for Los Angeles Unified School District teachers, took a position against the measure in August but did not become involved in Zimmer’s petition campaign for fear of angering voters.

“But any UTLA member that I know of would be happy to sign that the day after the election if it should pass,” UTLA President Helen Bernstein said.

Protests against Proposition 187 continued without incident Tuesday when students walked out briefly at eight Los Angeles schools. Meanwhile, administrators braced for a rumored countywide walkout today that is opposed by anti-Proposition 187 campaign leaders.

Tuesday’s largest protest occurred during the morning nutrition break at Belmont High School, when about 300 students marched toward Downtown.

A mass school walkout originally was planned for today by the Latino activist group that staged a large protest march through Downtown last month. The group called off the walkout last week after parent complaints and an agreement with the district to encourage formal school discussion of the proposition.

But student leaders said they suspect that many will leave school anyway tomorrow. A statewide coalition of student groups opposed to Proposition 187 has called for after-school sit-ins instead of walkouts today and on Monday, the day before the election.

The district has increased the number of administrators and school police at high schools and middle schools for today. “The whole emphasis is to try to persuade the kids to stay in school,” district spokesman Bill Rivera said.