Breakup of LAUSD Surfaces as Common Theme

A public hearing on a proposal to create two new San Fernando Valley school districts drew a sharply divided crowd of about 150 people Thursday--with opponents showing up in force for the first time.

The initial hearing on the proposal last week was dominated by those supporting secession from the Los Angeles Unified School District. But Thursday’s hearing appeared to be almost equally divided between supporters and opponents.

“I’m very concerned about this proposal,” said Ana Soriano of Sylmar, who has four children in district schools. “It divides the Valley into upper class and lower class--and that is not what education is about.”

The breakup proposal by the citizens group Finally Restoring Excellence in Education, or FREE, calls for two new districts--with Roscoe Boulevard serving as the primary boundary line between them.

Soriano and other opponents said the north Valley district would have a greater number of poor and minority students than its south Valley counterpart.

FREE organizer Stephanie Carter said there was no attempt to divide districts by race or class.

“If that were the case, I wouldn’t be a part of this plan,” Carter said. She added that Latinos would make up nearly half of the students in both districts.

Also voicing support for the breakup was Enrique Montoya, president of Padres de Canoga Park, a community group he said represents about 60 parents of district students.

“Breaking up the school district will help the community,” said Montoya, who has two children in the district. “Parents will have more of a say in their children’s education.”

The hearing was convened by the Los Angeles County Committee on School District Organization, which must ultimately recommend to state officials whether a breakup election should be held. The committee’s 11 members are elected by school district governing boards in the county.

Los Angeles school district officials said they have not taken a stand on the proposal to create two new school systems of 100,000 students each in the Valley. They are also awaiting more details from interim Supt. Ramon C. Cortines on a reorganization plan that would divide Los Angeles Unified, which has 711,000 students, into 11 subdistricts.

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Cortines and Howard Miller, the district’s chief operating officer, said they plan to unveil details March 15 and will push for the school board to adopt the plan by April 11.

Los Angeles Board of Education member Caprice Young said she believes the public should give district reforms a chance to work.

“I’m not here to speak against the proposal,” she said. “I’m here to speak in favor of reforming the district.”

But Ed Kaz, a teacher at Reseda High, said a breakup would just create “more bureaucracies.”

“There is nothing in this proposal to benefit education. There is no added money, no new textbooks,” he said.

Some district officials have warned that a breakup could hurt students. With an estimated 14,500 students being bused to other neighborhoods because of overcrowding, officials said returning the boys and girls to their home schools could make the problem even worse.

The hearing at Birmingham High School was part of a long review process that could culminate with a vote of the public.

To begin the breakup process, FREE had to collect signatures from at least 8% of residents who voted in the last gubernatorial election. In the Valley, that came to a minimum of 20,808 signatures; FREE gathered 20,962.

The county committee has 120 days from the first hearing Feb. 16 to submit a recommendation to the California Board of Education, which would decide whether to call an election. The state has not yet determined who would vote in the election--all district voters or just those in the areas proposed for independence.

No community has broken away from the LAUSD since Torrance, in 1948. The small South Bay city of Lomita has tried twice to secede and form its own 2,000-student district but failed, in part because the state board believed the new district would be too small to operate efficiently.

The proposed Valley districts would be among the five largest in the state, according to the state Department of Education. Supporters say the new school districts would be large enough to wield clout in Sacramento, but small enough to respond to the community.

There are about a half-dozen school district breakup movements underway in Los Angeles County, including efforts in the South Bay and Eastside.

FREE is by far the largest and one of the furthest along in the process.