Secessionists Plan Meeting on LAUSD Split

Citing a need to unite and take control of the ongoing crisis within the nation’s second-largest school system, San Fernando Valley secession leaders called Thursday for a citywide meeting to consider breaking away from the Los Angeles Unified School District.

The effort is being spearheaded by Valley VOTE, the main group behind the Valley secession campaign, and members are urging other groups to seize on the breakup momentum by attending the Nov. 13 forum.

“The school district is in crisis,” said Jeff Brain, president of Valley VOTE. “Clearly, we must move fast.”

As the turmoil continues between the Los Angeles Board of Education and beleaguered Supt. Ruben Zacarias, the movement to break up LAUSD has taken off in the past month, from the Valley to the South Bay to the Eastside.

Even Zacarias proposed last month to reorganize LAUSD by splitting it into 12 mini-districts. Earlier this week, Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa (D-Los Angeles), a mayoral candidate, said he would consider the idea.

Although Valley VOTE has not taken an official position on dismantling the 710,000-student district, Brain and other leaders said the issue should be explored and studied, including the process, costs and potential benefits and repercussions.

The group has formed a 10-member ad-hoc committee composed mostly of educators to begin examining the issues and to determine if Valley VOTE should support breaking up LAUSD and possibly forming one or two districts in the Valley.

At the meeting, “we want to get a pulse on what people are feeling throughout the district,” and to identify areas of consensus, Brain said.

State Sen. Richard Alarcon (D-Sylmar), who has supported a district breakup for the last seven years, said he would attend the gathering. He plans to hold his own community meeting Wednesday on the issue, he said.

In the Valley, “there is a broad support for breakup,” said Alarcon, who advocates a split because he believes district officials have largely neglected parental and community concerns.

Leaders of other breakup efforts also said they would attend the meeting.

“I don’t see any future with the school board,” said Marshall Diaz, chairman of the Los Angeles City/County Latino Redistricting Coalition, which has begun exploring the possibility of forming several school districts. For example, an Eastside school district would have a Latino majority in the voting booth as well as the classroom, he said.

Diaz opposed school secession until the recent turmoil, and although he still has reservations, he would consider it after thorough study.

“This is not something to rush into,” he said.

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A breakup could hurt the students, said Gordon Wohlers, an assistant superintendent in charge of policy, research and development for LAUSD. With an estimated 14,500 students being bused to other neighborhoods because of overcrowding, Wohlers said returning them to their home schools could “create an inordinate impact on the boys and girls. . . . There’s no [classroom] space for them.”

Such matters would be discussed at the meeting and later studied, school secession advocates said.

“We want to get everyone together to discuss all the important issues,” said Gary Thomas, a member of the Valley VOTE ad-hoc committee and vice chairman of Finally Restoring Excellence in Education, another school secession group in the Valley. “We want to get moving on the issue.”