Key Session Nears on Bid to Split Schools

If a divided Los Angeles is viable, as a recent study of San Fernando Valley secession concluded, could the Los Angeles Unified School District also be split?

Next month, the state Department of Education plans to release its analysis of a school district breakup proposal that, according to supporters, would create two more manageable districts in the San Fernando Valley or, according to opponents, would divide the haves from the have-nots.

For such a monumental breakup--no area has left the district since Torrance in 1948--the advocates and adversaries have been surprisingly nonchalant.

Instead of lobbying members of the State Board of Education, who will decide in June whether to put the question to a public vote, the interested parties seem confident that they can make their cases in the board’s Sacramento hearing, which in as little as one hour could lead to a vote on the division of the nation’s second-largest school district.

When the board last month approved an election to decide whether to create a separate district for 21,500 students in Carson, “It was over before we knew what happened,” said Carolyn Harris, the leader of the South Bay city’s secession group.

“We’ve been stunned ever since, it happened so quickly,” Harris said.

The Carson-wide vote is scheduled for Nov. 6, when the Valley school breakup question could also land on the ballot if the state board agrees. The state would define the voting area--a portion of the district, such as the Valley only, or all 708 square miles of the district--and breakup would require simple majority support.

The Department of Education’s analysis of Valley school secession is nearly complete. The 20-page report, plus more than 100 pages of attachments, will not be released until about 10 days before the board hears the issue on June 7, said Larry Shirey of the department.

Supporters of Valley school autonomy are “just waiting for the report, and then we’ll see what it says and go forward then,” said Stephanie Carter, whose group, Finally Restoring Excellence in Education--FREE--contends that new districts would be more responsive to students and parents.

L.A. Unified “is so large, you can hardly find who’s falling between the cracks until it’s too late,” said Carter, whose group gathered nearly 21,000 signatures supporting its petition for secession.

Even before the Department of Education’s report is presented, the plan that will come before the state board has one strike against it: A Los Angeles County committee found last year that removing 200,000 San Fernando Valley students from the 711,000-student L.A. school district and placing them into two new school districts would hurt the rest of the district by sapping essential funding from the remaining L.A. Unified.

Another report, produced by a private consultant for Los Angeles County, found that a breakup--creating north and south Valley districts separated by Roscoe Boulevard--would promote ethnic segregation. For one thing, the percentage of white students in the remaining L.A. Unified schools would decrease from 11% to 6%.