Two New Visions Emerge for L.A. Schools : Education: Newly elected board members Tokofsky and Kiriyama will attend first meeting today. Former seeks reduction of administrative jobs; latter seeks more volunteers.

Images of dramatically different school districts emerge in conversations with the two new members of the panel that will guide Los Angeles Unified schools to the eve of the 21st Century.

The teacher just 12 years into his career thinks nothing short of a wholesale internal shake-up will save a district that has grown stagnant under the weight of a top-heavy administration.

The principal near retirement sees a district suffering from neglect, in dire need of personal attention from outside businesses and the families it serves.

As they attend their inaugural meeting today, their immediate plans are as divergent as their perceptions.

David Tokofsky, the Marshall High School social studies teacher, lists cutting administrative jobs among his top priorities.

“I’m going to walk around [district headquarters] and go into offices and ask people, ‘Who are you? Why do we have this office?’ ” said Tokofsky, 35.

By contrast, Gardena Community Adult School Principal George Kiriyama hopes to begin his four-year term by bringing untapped resources into the classroom, creating a battalion of community and business volunteers willing to spend a few hours each week reading to elementary school students.

“I must have about a hundred people signed up already,” said Kiriyama, 63.

The two agree that the board needs to press for proof that the district’s current LEARN reform program is improving student performance, which signals a slightly harder-line approach than the past board majority’s. But what they intend to do with that information is further evidence of their dissimilarity.

Tokofsky wants to know if LEARN is working, because if it is not, the district should drop it and move on, he believes.

“LEARN [has] been incredibly helpful for healing political wounds,” Tokofsky said. But “at some point . . . there’s got to be some concrete numbers, and if they don’t [show performance increases], heads should roll.”

Kiriyama hopes that proof of LEARN’s success will work as a recruitment tool for schools still waiting on the sidelines and a morale booster for LEARN schools now wallowing in problems.

“A lot of times schools go into LEARN, then find it takes so much time that they get discouraged,” he said. “If we can show that student achievement is higher, they’re going to say, ‘Wow!”’

Los Angeles Unified’s original goal was to include all 650 district schools in the reform by next year, but meeting that deadline has proved tougher than expected.

The new board members will get their first chance to discuss LEARN later this month, when Supt. Sid Thompson is to propose a future road map for reform. Thompson has already warned that soon the district will find itself “up against a wall of schools” that are either reluctant or too disorganized to join LEARN.

Despite their different approaches, the two newcomers do not represent a fundamental shift in board philosophy on the most pressing issues facing the district.

Both say the seven-member board must find sufficient money in this year’s budget to prevent salary cuts, that it must oppose district breakup and private school voucher legislation, that it should continue its fight against Proposition 187, the anti-illegal immigration measure.

One of their first challenges will be the gnarly issue of improving student achievement.

Thompson set the stage for the discussion during his recent annual performance review. His contract requires that he set achievement goals. But the newcomers agree with the board majority that Thompson’s target--a one percentage point increase in student scores on the Comprehensive Test of Basic Skills (CTBS)--is not ambitious enough.

Tokofsky and Kiriyama represent different generations of district employees, but both fell into their chosen professions somewhat unexpectedly:

Tokofsky became a teacher in 1983 as a way to postpone law school; Kiriyama began teaching in 1969 when his rise in the post World War II business world was blocked by a glass ceiling for Japanese Americans.

Other similarities abound: Both have history degrees from University of California campuses--Kiriyama from UCLA, Tokofsky from UC Berkeley. Both Kiriyama’s wife and Tokofsky’s fiancee teach English as a Second Language in adult schools. Both men are native Angelenos and products of the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Their election-year allegiances, however, are near opposite. Tokofsky was backed by the United Teachers-Los Angeles union, which represents teachers, counselors, librarians and some others. Kiriyama was endorsed by the Associated Administrators--Los Angeles, the union representing management employees, from assistant principals to some department heads.

But Kiriyama says he still relates to teachers because he taught for 20 years before becoming an administrator. He was even “a little hurt,” he said, about UTLA’s unwillingness to endorse him.

And both of the new members acknowledge the need to forge relationships with all layers of district operations, as well as to maintain some independence from their primary support base.

They agree that the time they have spent on the district’s campuses gives them special insights into the changes that should occur.

Kiriyama wants all schools equipped with walkie-talkies to improve security, a measure he took at Gardena Adult School. He would also like to see improved coordination of vocational education among high schools, adult schools and regional training centers.

His experience managing the budget for an individual school--where he was able to keep track of where money came from and where it was spent--led him to push for full computerization of Los Angeles Unified’s budgeting.

“Then we would know exactly where we’re at at that moment,” he said. “It would be like running a small school.”

In addition, Kiriyama’s past contact with the business world caused him to oppose the district’s highly touted “Adopt-a-School” program, on the grounds that allowing businesses to adopt individual campuses merely increases inequities among schools.

“I know I’ll get in trouble for saying this,” he said, “but I think [businesses] should adopt L.A. Unified as a whole . . . not individual schools.”

Tokofsky’s personal experience with the financial uncertainty that followed the 10% districtwide pay cut in 1993 persuaded him that the district should negotiate multiyear contracts for its employees. That would prevent the annual malaise that settles in during drawn-out negotiations, he said, and minimize the time that district leaders must spend bargaining.

“It would allow those people to focus on other issues,” he said. “And you’ve got to give [employees] some hope.”

Tokofsky’s said he is frustrated with the district’s passive “under-siege” posture, and wants its legal department to become more aggressive--to set education policy, not just defend it.

Perhaps his most controversial proposal is to increase the number of teachers--and decrease class size--by cutting back on the large numbers of credentialed teachers who are working in counseling, advising and administrative positions.

“In the field, people are saying, ‘Just pare it down to the basics,”’ Tokofsky said. “I’m a public servant and the public has a lot of anger with the system as it is now. I think you have to come in with a certain amount of anger in order to get something done.”