School District Backers Make Final Push

Organizers of the drive in Lakewood to form the city’s own school district predict that they will have enough signatures by this weekend to file a formal petition.

More than 12,000 valid signatures of registered voters are required to begin the process. Just about that many have been collected, but organizers are planning a kickoff drive Saturday to gather as many as 3,000 additional names as insurance against the possibility that large numbers of signatures will be invalidated by the county.

“We may not get all the signatures we need this weekend but it will push us very close to the finish line,” said Sheryl Musicant, who works for the city of Lakewood.

Lakewood students currently attend schools operated by districts based in Long Beach, Paramount, Bellflower and Cerritos. The new district would split off three high schools, a continuation school and 16 elementary and middle schools from the existing four districts.

The drive to create a new district stems from the same state legislation that is behind the movement in the San Fernando Valley to break away from the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Even with the state legislation that took effect in 1996, sponsors of the drive face an uphill fight.

“The legislation didn’t necessarily make it easier to create a new district. What it did was make it possible,” said Todd Rogers, a Sheriff’s Department lieutenant who heads the drive. “There is still a very arduous process to go through.”

Once the signatures are validated, the plan would go first to the county Committee on Reorganization for a recommendation, then to the state Board of Education.

If the state board approves the request, an election would be held, with a majority vote needed for passage.

But the state board would determine who would vote in the election. Boundaries for the election could be as small as the boundaries of the proposed district or as large as the four affected districts combined.