Valley Leader Vows to Pursue School Breakup

A leader of the movement to separate the San Fernando Valley from the Los Angeles Unified School District said Friday that the group is undeterred by the State Board of Education’s rejection of a similar but much smaller breakaway bid.

The state education panel Thursday denied a request by the South Bay city of Lomita to hold an election on its proposal to carve a 2,000-student, three-school system from the nation’s second-largest school district.

“It was disappointing and astonishing, but not unexpected,” said Stephanie Carter, co-chairwoman of the Valley breakaway effort, called Finally Restoring Excellence in Education. “It doesn’t deter any efforts to go ahead and break away from [the district].”

Proponents of the Valley secession effort want to create independent northern and southern districts in the Valley with about 100,000 students in each school system.

The group asserts that smaller districts would allow for streamlined operations, improved access to administrators and better educational opportunities for all of Los Angeles’ 668,000 public school students.

Carter said she was particularly irked by board member Vicki Reynolds’ assertion that approval of the Lomita proposal would touch off “an avalanche of secession requests.”

“If that is the case,” Carter said, “it should make everyone stop and think, ‘Why do people want to leave? They would not want to leave a successful school district.’ ”

The Lomita secession effort was viewed as a bellwether case for similar movements in the Valley, Carson, Gardena and South-Cental Los Angeles because it represents only a tiny fraction of the district’s student population, and because Lomita is a separate city.

“I thought Lomita had the best chance of being approved,” Carter said.

Los Angeles school board member Julie Korenstein said she was not surprised at the outcome “because the proposal was turned down before. We are finding out that breaking up a school district is very difficult.”

Board member David Tokofsky said he doubts that the Lomita decision will have an impact on other secession movements.