A LOOK AHEAD * Educators from elementary schools that feed three troubled South Bay high schools are considering . . . Dropping Out of the District

One of Dennis Curtis’ favorite duties as a member of the Wiseburn School District Board of Education is handing out diplomas at the eighth-grade graduation ceremonies.

Long active in the small, kindergarten-through-eighth grade district’s close-knit communities southeast of Los Angeles International Airport, Curtis counts many of the young graduates and their families among his friends and neighbors.

“It’s wonderful, issuing diplomas to kids that you’ve watched grow up, seeing how well they’re doing,” Curtis said.

What isn’t at all wonderful, he is quick to say, is knowing where many of these students are headed: to the long-troubled Centinela Valley Union High School District.

Over the years, concerns have mounted steadily and, in recent months, leaders in Wiseburn and the three other elementary districts that send youngsters to Centinela Valley are actively exploring alternatives.

For well over a decade, as the South Bay high school district has undergone dramatic demographic shifts, it has endured racial strife among its students. The latest incident, a brawl between black and Latino students at Hawthorne High in February, brought county and U.S. Justice Department probes.

About 6,800 students attend one of the district’s three comprehensive high schools--Hawthorne, Lawndale and Leuzinger--or its continuation high school. About 66% of the students are Latino, 20% are black, 6% are white and 4% are Asian; other groups make up the remaining 4%.

The district has been beset by political turmoil on its Board of Education, financial troubles that pushed it near bankruptcy and high turnover among top administrators, including the controversial firings of two superintendents, in 1990 and 1998, with another superintendent’s contract bought out during the intervening years. Student achievement lagged and aging campuses deteriorated.

On standardized achievement tests given to California students last year, Centinela Valley students, on average, scored third from the bottom among the 80 districts in Los Angeles County. On statewide group rankings ranging from 1 to 10, the highest, the district earned a 1.

Centinela district officials say that they are putting many of their problems behind them and that improvements will be evident soon.

Tired of waiting, however, parents and civic leaders in the “feeder” elementary districts--Hawthorne, Lawndale and Lennox, in addition to Wiseburn--are in various stages of finding alternatives. Although it could take years for some of them to be realized, the changes could at some point siphon substantial numbers of students--and state funding--from the high school district and could even lead to its dissolution.

Lennox, renowned in education circles for its success with its 6,900 largely impoverished Latino immigrant students, helped start a charter high school, which will open in August, for up to 140 of its middle school graduates.

School officials in Lawndale and Wiseburn also may go the charter high school route. Charter schools are state-funded public schools that are allowed freedom from most regulations with the expectation they will improve learning. Although relatively new on the education reform scene, charter schools are rapidly gaining in popularity among parents and civic and business leaders, and recent changes in California law have cleared the way for many more to open, with local district sponsorship, over the next few years.

The 6,000-student Lawndale district has received a state grant to plan a charter high school, and Wiseburn officials are considering whether to use some of the money from a recent voter-approved bond measure to build one.

Parental Pressure to Pull Out of District

Officials in Wiseburn, a 1,700-student district straddling parts of Hawthorne and El Segundo and the unincorporated county community of Del Aire, say some of their residents would like to see the district withdraw from Centinela Valley and align itself with the neighboring El Segundo Unified or another well-regarded area district.

Wiseburn Supt. Don Brann said parent dissatisfaction with the Centinela Valley district has reached the point that only about a third of the district’s eighth-graders move on to high school there. Some go to private or parochial schools, some families move away, and others scramble for permits to send their youngsters to El Segundo High, Mira Costa High in Manhattan Beach or Redondo Union High in Redondo Beach.

And, as competition grows among nonresident students for limited space at these popular, increasingly crowded schools, Brann is finding that Wiseburn parents are taking their children out during middle or even elementary school, when it is easier to get transfer permits, to assure a place at one of the other high schools.

“It has taken a good 15 years [for Centinela Valley] to deteriorate to the current situation. . . . The level of dissatisfaction is unprecedented,” Brann said.

In Hawthorne, which, with about 9,000 students is the largest of the five districts, officials are considering the possibility of “unifying,” becoming a kindergarten-through-12th-grade district instead of stopping at eighth grade. The most likely way that could be accomplished would be through the takeover of Hawthorne High School. Such a step, as with other efforts to reorganize district boundaries or facilities, could be taken only after an arduous process requiring state, county and voter approvals.

County education officials, charged by the state with overseeing efforts to reorganize districts, have been making the rounds of all the potentially affected districts, outlining the process and requirements during open sessions of the local boards of education.

Any plan to dismantle the district must show that, among other things, it would not significantly disrupt the educational programs, not result in significant cost increases, and not promote racial or ethnic discrimination or segregation.

To start the process, a majority of school board members in each affected district, or at least 25% of the affected area’s registered voters, must petition the county Office of Education. That begins a lengthy review period before going to the voters, who will have the final say. The whole process usually takes at least three years, said Gregory G. Magnuson of the county education office.

To stave that off, Centinela Valley officials are hoping they have enough time to demonstrate that things are getting better.

“I am not excited about a possible downsizing of the district, but I think a total elimination [of the district] would be a disservice to the students and the community,” said Eddie Chacon, president of the high school district’s board.

“I think we have a lot to offer, and I think we are making progress,” he added.

Chacon cited a less-fractious board and a superintendent, Julian Lopez, who has helped launch new initiatives, including remedial and technology programs, in the two years since his arrival. In addition, voters’ resounding approval earlier this year of a $59-million bond measure will allow the district to renovate its aging campuses.

He pointed to a new program to help students lagging in math and reading skills and a technology grant for computers and updated wiring at two of the schools.

“I understand that there is a new wave of school options for the community, and that is leading to what I think is a healthy process” of evaluation, Chacon said.

“We are making major philosophical and physical changes. We all agree that the paramount issue is what’s best for the students,” he said.

Before making major decisions about the district’s future, Chacon added, “I hope that people will stand back and take a good look” at all their options.

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Centinela Valley Union High School District

Enrollment: 6,800

Student ethnicity

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Latino 66% Black 20% White 6% Asian 4% Other 4%

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