Cortines Seeks Restructured District

Ramon C. Cortines, who will soon become interim superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, said Monday he plans to reorganize the district “to put decision-making closer to where the boys and girls are.”

Cortines could not provide details of his plan during a meeting with hundreds of employees at district headquarters, but said it will be modeled after one announced in October by Supt. Ruben Zacarias.

Zacarias, who will be stepping down Jan. 15 after 2 1/2 years in the post, wanted to divide the sprawling district into 12 semiautonomous “mini-districts.” Cortines hopes to split it up into “somewhere between eight and 12 districts,” he said.

Cortines has hired Maria Casillas, president of the Los Angeles Annenberg Metropolitan Project, or LAAMP, to help him implement the restructuring plan. LAAMP is a 5-year, $53-million program that promotes reform activities at local schools.

Casillas, who has been mentioned as a potential candidate for superintendent, said she will work as a paid consultant at least until June while continuing in her job at LAAMP.

Before joining LAAMP, Casillas worked for the school district for two decades--as a teacher, an elementary school principal, a regional superintendent and assistant superintendent in charge of LEARN, the district’s largest school reform program.

“Who wouldn’t want to help the district right now,” Casillas said. “This is a time filled with hope.”

Cortines said he wants to devise a system that provides more autonomy to individual schools than the current system of 27 administrative “clusters,” which are composed of a high school and the elementary and middle schools that feed it.

“I’ve taken what Dr. Zacarias suggested . . . and will put detail into it,” Cortines told employees. “Within 10 days, I’ll have a concept paper about it for you.”

With a priority of increasing reading and math scores of the district’s 711,000 students, the leaders of the new districts will be selected on the basis of their proven ability, and rotated every two to three years, Cortines said.

“The reading scores for this district are dismal for all ethnic groups; they’re in the 20th percentile and that is just unacceptable,” Cortines said.

Cortines also warned that the restructuring is almost certain to include a merging of some departments and the elimination of some jobs.

“I’m not suggesting there may not be some layoffs,” he said. “Change is difficult . . . but the changes will be made in the most humane way possible.”

At least one member of the Los Angeles Board of Education faulted Cortines for sharing his vision with staffers before discussing it with the board. In a recent memo to Cortines, board member Valerie Fields wrote, “Ray, when will you be briefing the board? I should think we’d come first.”

In an interview Monday, Fields said: “It was just a suggestion. I always think it’s a good idea for the board to be briefed first so we can have a handle on what’s going on and exchange ideas on it.”