Bellflower to Survey Voters on Proposed School District

The Bellflower City Council Wednesday night agreed to put an advisory measure on the March ballot to survey city voters on whether they would support or oppose a proposed new school district in neighboring Lakewood.

A 3-to-2 majority of council members backed the measure as an inexpensive way to warn residents about the potential side effects of creating a new district.

They said an independent school district in Lakewood would mean overcrowding and school construction expenses in Bellflower.

Currently, Lakewood’s 22 schools are divided among four outside districts, including the Bellflower district.

According to a group promoting the new district, more than 8,000 Lakewood residents support taking over all 22 schools within city limits. Such a district would allow home rule and higher standards, they say.

On the other hand, critics in neighboring cities, many of whom have children that are bused into Lakewood for school, have focused on the upper middle-class nature of the proposed district and criticized the Lakewood group’s idea as elitist.

Bellflower has its own concern: Mayfair High School--located in Lakewood but just over the border from Bellflower. About a third of the school’s 2,000 students come from Bellflower.

“We only have two high schools [in the Bellflower Unified School District] and Lakewood wants to take one of them away from us,” said Councilman Art Olivier.

A minority on the council had argued that the matter should be left up to the Bellflower School Board--a majority of whose members live in Lakewood. The board has yet to take any position, noting that the Lakewood organizers still have plenty of work ahead.