Split-Up Decisions

The 20,962 signatures gathered by a group called Finally Restoring Excellence in Education, or FREE, were enough to trigger a review process that could lead to a public vote on whether to break up the Los Angeles Unified School District to form two San Fernando Valley districts.

But judging from a hearing last month on the proposed breakup, 20,000 signatures do not a consensus make. Valley residents who testified at the hearing seemed far from ready to make such a momentous decision.

Much like the participants in a November summit on breaking up the school district, speakers at the Feb. 24 hearing agreed they wanted to do something, but couldn’t agree on what.

Yes, many spoke in support of breakup, calling LAUSD dysfunctional and arguing that two autonomous Valley districts would allow greater parental involvement.

But as many spoke against the proposal, for a wide range of reasons.

The disagreement was valleywide. Young families who had bought homes in the West Valley so that their children could attend El Camino Real High School lamented that splitting the Valley into north and south districts, as the FREE petition proposes, would funnel their children into another school.

Parents from the northeast Valley claimed that a north-south split would divide the Valley into richer and poorer districts and that their children would lose the chance to attend less crowded schools.

And although FREE describes itself as a grass-roots movement, many parents clearly felt left out of its deliberations and argued that decisions on whether or how to carve up the district were being made too quickly and without enough input.

Some speakers even defended the LAUSD, although admittedly they were in the minority. One said that splitting off the Valley would just create more bureaucracy and urged giving interim Supt. Ramon Cortines’ proposed reforms--including cutting district administration by half and establishing 11 mini-districts--a chance.

Others said that creating two new Valley districts didn’t really address needed educational reforms such as improving training and support for teachers. One teacher said that if parents wanted to participate more, they were welcome in her classroom and always had been.

A contingent of retired LAUSD teachers reminded breakup proponents that new districts would inherit liabilities as well as assets, and worried that breaking up the district would put their pensions and benefits at risk.

The hearing was the second of two called by the Los Angeles County Committee on School District Organization. The county committee will make a report and a recommendation in June to the State Board of Education, which in turn will decide whether to put the breakup proposal to a public vote.

About 150 people attended, enough to persuade the committee to schedule a third hearing March 13. But 150 people is still only a fraction of the Valley’s 1.3 million residents. We wonder how many more would, like the speakers at the last hearing, express surprise and dismay at dividing the district at all or at dividing the Valley. Now is the time to learn about the proposal--and to speak up.

To Take Action: The Los Angeles County Committee on School District Organization has scheduled a third public hearing March 13 at 7 p.m. at Walter Reed Middle School, 4525 Irvine Ave. Written comments may be addressed to the committee and mailed to the Los Angeles County Office of Education, 9300 Imperial Highway, EC Annex, Downey, CA 90242-2890.