How Big Is the L.A. School District? Well . . . : Legislation: Breakup activist comes up with images like this: LAUSD’s 61,224 employees would overflow Dodger Stadium.

If nothing else hammers home the idea that the Los Angeles Unified School District is, well, big , consider the mental picture formed by this statement:

If Supt. Sid Thompson were to hold a reception for LAUSD’s 61,224 employees, it would have to be in the Rose Bowl. Dodger Stadium would be too small.

Or this:

To spend five minutes talking to each employee, he’d have to set aside 5,102 hours.

Even this:

If every employee were to stand two feet apart, the reception line would stretch over 23 miles.

Should these scenarios fail to elicit a visual image of exactly how vast the Los Angeles school system is, Diana Dixon Davis has more up her sleeve. Pages more.

A demographer by trade, Davis, a Chatsworth parent activist, has developed a five-page fact sheet designed to expose what she sees as a bloated LAUSD through the statistics, analogies and extrapolations she compiles. In the quest to obtain legislation to help dismantle the district, Davis spreads them like gospel every chance she gets--along with fellow parent activist Stephanie Carter of Tarzana.

“A lot of people forget how big LAUSD is,” Davis says. “But when I throw these numbers out, it’s sort of the ‘gee whiz’ factor. I get a reaction.”

On the eve of today’s crucial state Senate vote on a school breakup bill, the factoids have become part of Capitol lore, oft-repeated in floor debates, committee hearings or hallway conversations.

Even legislators borrow liberally from the duet’s repertoire when they want to make a point about the need to downsize or split the district to improve its quality of education. Davis’ research has been incorporated into bill language. And it’s been the basis for 5,000 flyers printed and distributed by Democratic state Sen. Tom Hayden.

Duane Peterson, Hayden’s chief of staff, said Davis’ fresh eye--and outsider’s perspective--brings a sharper focus to the debate over legislation making it easier to qualify the school breakup issue for the ballot.

For one thing, he said, her “talking points” help lawmakers steer clear of the “legal gobbledygook” that often bogs down deliberations. “It’s real people like Diana who both know the issue and can communicate it in creative plain English that can save the day,” Peterson said.

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Davis is herself a bit of a research wonk and is well acquainted with the MEGO (“my eyes glaze over”) phenomenon that frequently afflicts the world of policy-makers. To combat that, she said, “I try to give people something they could relate to--something from their everyday experiences. They’ve been to Dodger Stadium, they’ve been to the Rose Bowl. So they know what that means.”

One person who is not so sure Davis and Carter are on point is Ron Prescott, the LAUSD’s chief lobbyist in Sacramento, who says the problem lies more with crowded enrollment in schools than with the size of the far-flung district.

Still, he was careful not to criticize Carter and Davis for their outspokenness. “People who feel strongly should not be stifled in their efforts for change,” Prescott said.

It was Carter who persuaded her friend Davis to distribute the fact sheets she was compiling to lawmakers in Sacramento.

And it is Carter who puts the data out on the grapevine, sprinkling basic facts relating to LAUSD’s size into conversation the way others might name-drop.

“You always repeat that the size of the district is 708 square miles and you always say 640,000 students,” she says. “It’s very difficult for people to visualize. I think repeating them over and over again finally does click with people at some point.”

And when you say 708 square miles, Davis notes, you might mention that’s about the size of Rhode Island. And when you refer to enrollment figures, you can also note that LAUSD is five times bigger than the next largest school district in California.

Or, as Carter says, that the district stretches 75 miles from end to end, about the equivalent of traveling from Sacramento to the Bay Area.

Consider some of the other tidbits in Davis’ and Carter’s information arsenal:

* If LAUSD territory were a state, its population would rank as the 22nd largest, between Alabama’s 4 million and Louisiana’s 4.2 million.

* Each of the seven school board members represents 602,000 people, a population larger than that of three entire states--Vermont, Arkansas and Wyoming.

* LAUSD’s annual budget of $3.9 billion is larger than the budget of 15 states.

* If superintendent Thompson were to hold his employee reception for eight hours a day, five days a week, 52 weeks a year, he would reach the end of the line in just over 2 1/2 years.

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Davis admits to getting a kick out of harvesting databases ranging from U.S. Census statistical analyses to the phone book, but says her motive goes beyond her fascination with numbers. A mother of three, Davis has a son in elementary school, one in junior high and one in high school. “I’m really concerned about the academic achievement in the district. That’s my guiding force,” she says.

Likewise, Carter has school-age children, believes their education ought to be better and brings to the debate her experience as a former elementary school teacher.

As a leader of the breakup movement, Carter has frequently flown to Sacramento to testify in favor of the Assembly bill scheduled to come up for a full Senate vote today. The measure, by Assemblywoman Paula Boland (R-Granada Hills) lowers the number of qualifying signatures--from 386,000 to roughly 72,000--needed to place the LAUSD breakup issue on a districtwide ballot. AB 107 also removes the school board’s power to veto a breakup proposal that qualifies for the ballot.

While Boland’s bill remains controversial, all sides back legislation by Hayden to ensure racial and funding equities for any new districts formed in the wake of an LAUSD breakup. That bill, which is linked to Boland’s and must also pass for hers to become law, won a 16-0 endorsement from the Assembly Appropriations Committee Wednesday.

If the Boland bill clears its final hurdle today, the bill will very likely be signed into law by Gov. Pete Wilson, who has already indicated his support for it.

Before that can happen, the LAUSD’s Prescott will push the school board’s position that the bill is unconstitutional since it singles out the Los Angeles school system. Should the tactic fail, he will harbor no ill will toward the crusading Carter and Davis.

“I really believe that people that want change are people of good will,” Prescott said. “I don’t question their motivation.”