Secessionists Focus on School District Breakup

By trying to take the lead in breaking up the city school district, the group spearheading the San Fernando Valley’s municipal secession drive wants to not only dismantle what it sees as another dysfunctional bureaucracy, but also build new alliances for its own cause.

Recent steps by Valley VOTE to coordinate the drive to break up the Los Angeles Unified School District have been widely applauded by activists from San Pedro to Pacoima who are working toward the same end.

In Valley VOTE, they see an experienced, well-financed group that knows how to nudge politicians, drum up publicity and orchestrate a petition drive, as it successfully did to force a study of municipal secession by gathering 132,000 signatures.

“I wish [the interest] had come along long before now,” said Carolyn Harris, who heads a six-year LAUSD breakaway movement in Carson. “It fuels the fire; it adds to the momentum.”

But not every school breakup group is in lock-step. And critics openly question whether Valley VOTE is latching on to the district simply to further its goal of city deconstruction.

“Valley VOTE is not looking to help the students,” said Los Angeles school board President Genethia Hayes, part of the panel’s new reformist majority. “It’s another example of people pushing forward their adult agendas, and it is not morally or ethically OK. If they want to revive Valley secession, that should be the primary focus, not breaking up the school district. It’s an extraordinarily egregious way to use children.”

Mayor Richard Riordan, who has clashed with Valley VOTE on city secession, is said to be angry the group has expanded its pro-breakup campaign to the school district.

“The mayor is focused on the reform-minded school board,” said Riordan spokeswoman Jessica Copen. “He believes we should give them an opportunity to fix the system.”

Leaders of Valley VOTE say the group has long supported breaking up the school district and Metropolitan Transportation Authority, as well as other efforts to divide mammoth government entities they say have grown too bloated to effectively provide services. The issues, they note, are all motivated by similar feelings of disenfranchisement and desire for greater local control.

Alliances Could Aid Their Cause

Valley VOTE leaders acknowledge they hope to make new friends and take the edge off the more divisive elements in the cityhood movement. The school district is currently rocked by numerous controversies, from the ouster of Supt. Ruben Zacarias to the construction of the $200-million Belmont Learning Complex on contaminated land, and is widely seen as the more vulnerable target for secessionists.

“We’re creating these alliances throughout the city that could help us build relationships for the cityhood issue,” said Valley VOTE Chairman Richard Close. “This is easier because the numbers [of signatures needed] are much smaller, and the outrage is much greater.”

For a school breakup to begin, state law requires activists to collect signatures from 8% of those who voted in the area in the last gubernatorial election--a far lower hurdle than the 25% required to kick off a municipal secession.

If the 8% requirement is met, the 11-member Los Angeles County Committee on School District Organization then must study the issue, hold public hearings and submit the proposal and a recommendation to the state. At that point, the state Board of Education would study the issue further, hold hearings and decide whether to call an election. To make the ballot under state law, a split may not promote racial or ethnic segregation or result in increased costs to the state, among other criteria.

To have any chance of success, Valley VOTE believes school district breakup groups must show a united front. Close hopes the new, Valley VOTE-led coalition will soon begin a drive to gather at least 65,000 signatures citywide by February, a move he believes could prompt legislation and increase support among politicians.

Most school breakup advocates are supportive of that approach, and many have already signed up with the “All-District Alliance for School Reorganization.” But many of the groups already up and running--including one in the Valley--say they will continue to move forward alone.

Carson activists have submitted 15,000 signatures to the county. And leaders of the Valley’s Finally Restoring Excellence in Education say they are close to doing the same to form two new districts, one in the north and another in the south.

“I’m happy to work with the coalition and, for those of us who have been doing this for a while, it’s nice to see some momentum,” said FREE leader Stephanie Carter. “But we’re not going to suddenly start all over again. A lot of people have put a lot of work in this when it wasn’t fashionable.”

In the Valley, the school breakup issue could be complicated by a long-festering dispute among secessionist leaders.

Privately, some Valley VOTE leaders have long ridiculed FREE for failing to seize the momentum for district breakup. Now Valley VOTE is not only muscling in on the action and inviting FREE into its fold, but also is pondering a new signature drive of its own, to form a single, Valleywide district.

That does not go over well with former Assemblywoman Paula Boland, a FREE founder. Boland is credited with launching both the city and school secession movements in the Valley, but parted ways with the group that became Valley VOTE and has repeatedly criticized its approach. She said Valley VOTE should help FREE--and Valley VOTE has agreed to help--but Valley VOTE continues to discuss a petition drive of its own.

“I hope everyone understands we have to speak as one voice, not many voices, if we expect to force some changes in the school district,” Boland said. “If people really care about kids and changing the education system, they’ll work together.”

No Consensus on Breakup Proposals

Boland is expected to take part in the coalition. But sources close to her said tensions are unlikely to dissipate, because Boland feels betrayed by Valley VOTE. They contend FREE was asked by secession activists to slow its petition drive to make room for Valley VOTE, which, unlike FREE, faced a legal deadline.

Now, they say, Valley VOTE is using that to disparage Boland and other FREE leaders.

Powerful elected leaders such as state Sens. Richard Alarcon (D-Sylmar) and Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles) also have different ideas about how best to break up the school district.

Alarcon, for example, recently asked the state Senate’s Office of Research to review the possibility of a series of smaller districts, including one for the northeast Valley--a marked difference from FREE’s north-south district proposal and Valley VOTE’s “one Valley, one district” proposal.

Those differences could signal trouble ahead for school breakup efforts, some political experts said.

“Therein lies the stumbling blocks,” said veteran political consultant Larry Levine. “Many political movements fall apart once people begin discussing details.”

Despite those potential problems, Levine said Valley VOTE can only benefit by broadening its mission.

“The reality is, Valley VOTE had no political clout outside the Valley,” he said. “So to get involved with school district breakup and the different coalitions around the city interested in that, [is] a masterstroke. . . .”

Education Leaders See Possibilities

No community has successfully left Los Angeles Unified since Torrance did so in 1948. Since the mid-1980s, the small South Bay city of Lomita has tried to form a 2,000-student district, but twice has been rejected by the state.

Nevertheless, the new breakup coalition is researching faster alternative ways to leave the district and expects state officials to be more supportive of its cause, especially in light of a report last month by the state’s watchdog Little Hoover Commission. It recommended formation of a panel of community leaders and professionals to examine breaking up the district, which it called “a disturbingly dysfunctional organization.”

One state Board of Education member said the board has become so frustrated and dismayed with the Los Angeles district that it may now be inclined to support breakup attempts.

“What I see is more interest and more possibility than ever before,” said the board member, who asked not to be identified. “The district is a mess. . . . Anything has to be better than LAUSD.”