CALIFORNIA ELECTIONS : PROPOSITION 187 : Investigation of Walkouts Urged : Initiative’s backers say school officials encouraged students to leave classes and protest. Administrators deny the charge, and the measure’s opponents say its passage would lead to an increase in crime.

Backers of Proposition 187 accused school officials Friday of encouraging thousands of students to walk out of class in recent weeks, while opponents of the measure said its passage would throw hundreds of thousands more out of school permanently.

In a last-chance appeal for voters to defeat Proposition 187, Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block and top prosecutors from Los Angeles and San Francisco charged that barring up to 400,000 undocumented students from school--as the measure calls for--would result in a substantial crime increase.

“The truth is that crime prevention means keeping kids in school,” Los Angeles County Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti said at a news conference. “The law enforcement community is standing shoulder to shoulder saying, ‘For us as professionals, Proposition 187 is not the way to go.’ ”

Meanwhile, sponsors of the ballot measure held their own news conference Friday morning outside Los Angeles Unified School District headquarters, urging that Garcetti investigate allegations that teachers and administrators encouraged and in some cases assisted angry students to plan and execute the walkouts.

To support their claims, they quoted a news report of Granada Hills High teachers helping map a march route earlier this week. They also distributed letters from the Long Beach and Los Angeles school districts advising parents about possible consequences of Proposition 187.

“We are outraged and we believe that taxpayers should be outraged that dollars for education . . . seem to be being channeled into a political campaign,” said Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Huntington Beach), a major backer of the proposition. “We are also upset that teachers and administrators seem to be inciting the students to go out into the streets to ditch classes.”

A spokeswoman for Garcetti said the district attorney’s office had not received a formal request to investigate the alleged school misconduct.

Los Angeles Unified officials defended the mailing of letters to parents, saying they were providing only factual information. They also said they would look into specific reports of teachers or administrators getting involved in walkouts.

“Those people will be disciplined should those allegations prove true,” Board of Education President Mark Slavkin said.

Granada Hills High School Principal Kathleen Rattay said reports of teacher participation in a march Wednesday were grossly exaggerated. She and other school officials only advised the 300 students how to conduct their march after spending more than two hours trying to dissuade them from leaving the campus, she said.

Scattered walkouts continued Friday, with more than 3,500 students leaving schools around the county. About 500 South-Central Los Angeles high school students gathered at Exposition Park in the morning. Three people were arrested there--two on charges of battery on an officer and one on charges of vandalism.

Around noon, what began as a peaceful demonstration by about 200 Gardena High School students turned into a racial standoff and fistfight among black and Latino students from Gardena and Leuzinger high schools. Sheriff’s officials made about a dozen arrests.

At their morning news conference, Garcetti, Block, Los Angeles City Atty. James Hahn and San Francisco Dist. Atty. Arlo Smith asked voters to vote no on Proposition 187 on Tuesday.

“Please dig down deep inside,” Garcetti said. “The reason the (proponents of the measure) want the case to go to the United States Supreme Court is because they’re hoping that the court will change the law. If that happens, are you going to feel good?”

Block agreed that passage of the measure would have a large impact on youngsters and crime. “Not only will many of them get into mischief,” said Block, who was one of the first public figures to come out against the measure, “but many of them will become victims of crime.”

In addition to barring illegal immigrant children from public school and non-emergency health care, the measure calls for educators and public health administrators to report suspects to federal authorities. In this manner, the measure’s supporters say, illegal immigrants can be deported.

But Block raised questions about the likelihood of such deportations--considering that federal authorities already have trouble keeping up with deportation cases at the county jail alone.

If Proposition 187 is approved, the federal Immigration and Naturalization Service would be hard-pressed to begin checking the long lists of suspects that, according to the measure, it would begin receiving from hospitals, clinics and schools, said INS spokesman Richard Kenney.

Block also said that the student walkouts “are really undercutting” the efforts to defeat the measure: “The critical voter base is going to be those who are yet undecided and they can be pushed in either direction.”

In a printed statement, Cardinal Roger M. Mahony joined those opposing the walkouts, commending students for “their passionate interest in this election,” but asking them to work against Proposition 187 after school. Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina, in a noontime appearance at Montebello High School, also implored students not to leave school next week.

Since the walkouts began a month ago, Los Angeles Unified administrators have publicly asked students to remain at school, but they also made it easy for them to return if they chose to leave. Administrators and teachers have walked with students, sometimes providing bullhorns; school buses have been provided to return protesters to school, and few students have been disciplined for leaving campus.

Councilwoman Laura Chick called Friday for teachers and administrators to “enforce consequences” on truant students, such as putting students in detention or notifying their parents.

“I am not tolerant of children being out of school unless they are sick or have some other appropriate reason,” Chick said.

University High School did just that, assigning six hours of detention to more than 700 students who skipped two classes to demonstrate at the Federal Building in Westwood on Wednesday morning.

Districtwide, however, most schools have followed the district’s policy to punish only those who do not return to school after the march or who cause problems, such as vandalism, while off campus.

Times staff writers Leslie Berger, Tina Daunt, Isaac Guzman and Timothy Williams and special correspondents Leslie Berestein, Scott Collins, Jon Garcia, Mary Moore and Simon Romero contributed to this story.