Signatures Submitted on Bid to Split L.A. Unified

In a move toward breaking up the Los Angeles Unified School District, a grass-roots group submitted 30,000 signatures Thursday to the county Office of Education advocating two independent school systems in the San Fernando Valley.

Finally Restoring Excellence in Education, or FREE, is asking to form two 100,000-student districts with an east-west boundary bisecting the Valley, roughly along Roscoe Boulevard.

The proposed districts would be among the five largest in the state, according to the California Department of Education. The submission of signatures marks the official start of a long review process that could culminate with a vote of the people.

“I think it’s finally going to happen,” said Stephanie Carter, a FREE co-chairwoman who has been collecting signatures for two years. “It’s pretty apparent to everyone in Los Angeles, as well as Sacramento, that this behemoth district is too dysfunctional.”

FREE, which was formed in 1997, is among half a dozen or so organizations from the South Bay to the Eastside working to carve up Los Angeles Unified, which has 710,000 students. School secessionists in Carson recently submitted 15,000 signatures to the county.

But Los Angeles Board of Education President Genethia Hayes questioned why anyone would want to break away when a reform-minded board has initiated significant changes, including restructuring top management.

“Why are they talking about breakup when there is a new school board with a new thrust?” she asked Thursday. “If someone could tell me definitively that smaller districts are better than larger districts, then I would entertain a conversation. But until then, I am focusing my energy on improving student achievement.”

Despite recent reform efforts, including hiring the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to oversee construction of at least 150 schools, school secessionists argue that the district is still too large.

Bringing in the Army “just shows how dysfunctional the district is,” said Carter, who added that the two proposed Valley districts would be large enough to wield clout in Sacramento but small enough to respond to the community.

Ramon C. Cortines, who will become interim L.A. Unified superintendent in January, said he is developing a plan, to be announced early next year, that would allow for more local control of schools. Currently, the district has three assistant superintendents overseeing 27 clusters of schools.

“There are small districts in the state that are very mediocre,” Cortines said. “It’s not the size of the district, it’s the delivery of services, and that’s what I’m working on.”

But activists across the city seeking to break away from Los Angeles Unified applauded FREE for filing its petition.

“It starts the process,” said Richard Close, chairman of Valley VOTE, a city secession group that recently expanded its campaign to include a regional school breakup effort called the All-District Alliance for School Reorganization.

Activists in the Valley have advocated secession from the school district for more than a decade. FREE was formed two years ago but suffered several setbacks, including losing its executive director and being overshadowed by the city secession drive.

State law requires petitioners who want to break up a school district to collect signatures from 8% of residents who voted in the last gubernatorial election. That comes to 20,808 signatures in the Valley.

The county Office of Education has 20 calendar days to verify the signatures. Among the office’s tasks is ensuring that those who signed the petition are registered voters.

If the 8% requirement is met, the 11-member Los Angeles County Committee on School District Organization will hold public hearings and submit the proposal and a recommendation to the state. Then the State Board of Education would decide whether to call an election.

No community has successfully left the district since Torrance in 1948. Lomita has tried to break off from the L.A. system and form its own 2,000-student district but has failed twice, in part because the state board felt that the new district would be too small.

Although state officials have declined to discuss an L.A. Unified breakup until they get a recommendation from the county, some have privately said the district is in such disarray that they would be inclined to support such an effort.