Absent Panelist Also Opposes Breakup

A member absent from this week’s county education committee meeting said Thursday she would have voted against recommending that the state put before voters a plan to dismantle the Los Angeles Unified school system and form two districts in the San Fernando Valley.

Brenda Gottfried, a Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District board member, said she did not attend the Wednesday morning hearing because she was exhausted after a 10-hour flight from London that arrived late Tuesday night.

“I was jet-lagged,” Gottfried said. “It was not my intention in any way to avoid making a decision. I had no idea that the vote was going to be that close. It was a complete surprise.”

In her absence, the Los Angeles County Committee on School District Organization voted 5 to 5 on the proposal created by the Valley citizens group Finally Restoring Excellence in Education, or FREE.

The plan required a majority vote from members, who were elected by school district governing boards throughout the county.

The split vote is tantamount to a negative recommendation to the state Board of Education, which will ultimately decide whether to call an election. The state board is due to take up the matter next month.

Gottfried said she would have opposed the plan to split the 711,000-student Los Angeles Unified School District into three autonomous systems, based on a consultant’s conclusions that the proposal failed to meet two of nine legal criteria required under state law, including racial diversity and financial viability of the new districts.

“It appears that several of the criteria were questionable in terms of whether they would be sufficiently met,” Gottfried said. “Before recommending approval to the state Board of Education for a plan that would have such a major impact on the LAUSD, I think it should have been more conclusive in all areas.”