L.A. Unified Agrees to Give Up Key Powers

Faced with a barrage of criticism over how it constructs campuses, Los Angeles Unified school officials late Thursday agreed to far-reaching reforms that would take them out of the business of buying land, cleaning up toxic contamination and building schools.

The district, however, will continue to have a role in selecting where dozens of new campuses will be placed, according to those involved in negotiating the changes.

Still to be resolved is what agencies will take over the various tasks. There is no precedent to follow, because every district in the state plans and builds its own schools, said Barry Groveman, an environmental attorney who consults with the district and participated in the negotiations.

Los Angeles Unified took the extraordinary step of relinquishing some of its powers under pressure from a trio of state legislators who have been extremely critical of the district.

The changes, which are to be announced today, are intended to help restore public confidence in the 700,000-student district and allow it to focus more clearly on the academic achievement of its students, said state Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Los Angeles), a key player in the negotiations.

They also come at a strategic moment when the district has embarked on an ambitious plan to build 51 campuses over the next 10 years even as it launches initiatives to increase student performance.

Supt. Ruben Zacarias said late Thursday that the changes usher in a “new era for addressing the issues that have been raised regarding acquisition, development and construction of schools.”

Talks between school officials and the legislators began about three weeks ago and reached a frantic pace on the eve of today’s potentially embarrassing hearing about faulty environmental assessment at the district’s new $200-million Belmont Learning Complex near downtown.

Hayden, state Sen. Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles) and Assemblyman Scott Wildman (D-Los Angeles) have been relentless critics of the district’s real estate and school construction practices. In particular, they cite problems at Belmont, Jefferson Middle School and the location of a future South Gate school.

Some said the reforms were intended, in part, to “turn down the volume” of criticism that has distracted L.A. Unified officials.

“There’s been such a division and demoralization about the Los Angeles school district that the educational agenda . . . has been almost made secondary to controversy,” Hayden said.

Zacarias said he was prompted to consider such a divestiture of bureaucratic power because of “all these crises that keep popping up. . . . We need to remove ourselves from these distractions, as important as they are, and focus on education.”

Others said the changes strike at the heart of a bureaucratic culture that promotes credentialed teachers to administrative positions where they negotiate with developers and face highly technical problems, such as extracting carcinogens and methane gas from the ground.

For the reforms to become final, the Board of Education must approve and changes must be made in state law. The board has indicated it supports the moves.

As outlined by Hayden, Zacarias and others involved in the negotiations, the framework of reforms includes:

* Appointment of a blue-ribbon commission to study how to phase out the district’s involvement in acquiring, developing and building schools. Those functions would be taken over by a “new entity,” perhaps the state’s Department of General Services.

* Removing the district’s environmental quality functions and placing them with the state’s Environmental Protection Agency. Hayden said this could be done quickly and would require only a memorandum of understanding between the district and the state.

* Giving the district’s new director of internal audits and special investigations the power to subpoena evidence of wrongdoing within the district. This would require legislation.

* Encouraging the district to play an active role in coming up with new health and safety standards for children in school. This would include convening a panel of experts to discuss such aspects as school design and indoor air pollution. The new standards could be adopted as interim measures but would later need to be codified in law.

* Reopening construction bids for Belmont, which is half completed, to deflect mounting criticism over the project’s cost. Belmont is the most expensive high school project in state history.

Hayden and others involved in the negotiations said the reforms are key to healing political wounds that may jeopardize the district’s ability to win additional state funds it would need to meet the challenge of Gov. Gray Davis’ educational reforms.

In today’s hearing, which is being run by three legislative committees, nearly 30 witnesses are expected to testify on how the district started construction on Belmont without full environmental review of the property, located west of downtown at 1st Street and Beaudry Avenue. Part of the steeply sloped 35-acre site is a former oil field.

New discoveries of environmental hazards, including explosive methane and traces of carcinogenic benzene, are expected to raise Belmont’s cost more than $10 million and have led to calls for a criminal investigation.

Among the entities that have been asked to probe the project are the Los Angeles County district attorney, the grand jury and the state attorney general.

From the outset, the Belmont project has been embroiled in controversy. Allegations of conflict of interest involving district officials and consultants also dogged the project. Last month, the district fired its outside lawyer on the deal and has hired a new firm to renegotiate potential cost overruns charged by its developer, Temple Beaudry Partners.