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By David R. Baker, Staff Writer
Heavy debt, overcrowding and racial segregation could be the result of breaking up Los Angeles Unified by creating two smaller school districts in the San Fernando Valley, warns a county report released Wednesday.
While the report found that the breakup plan meets most conditions mandated by state law, it also cites serious problems.
The split would leave the Los Angeles Unified School Districts with few white students and flood central-city schools with more than 8,000 children now bused to Valley campuses. And the new Valley districts, the report said, could be saddled with debt.
"This study concludes that the fiscal status of the proposed North and South San Fernando Valley (Unified School Districts) would be at risk upon formation," the study said. "The large negative fund balances that the proposed new districts would have upon formation would cause a substantial negative effect on the districts' financial viability and fiscal management. [State law requires an equal division of assets and liabilities. If the New Valley districts have large negative fund balances the remaining LAUSD would have the same large negative fund balances unless the debt was dumped on the valley and the funds keep by LAUSD. ]
Los Angeles County education officials commissioned the report to analyze a breakup proposal submitted by Finally Restoring Excellence in Education.
The Valley-based breakup group collected about 21,000 signatures on petitions calling for the creation of two districts, one covering the northern San Fernando Valley, the other covering the south. FREE leaders greeted the report [The report is only available to the public by driving to Downey and picking up a copy. LACOE stated (6-1-00) that they did not have the report in an electronic form to post on line so the 3 million residents in LAUSD could read it.] findings Wednesday with skepticism, although they cautioned they hadn't yet read the entire inch-thick tome. "I don't believe the numbers, but I need time to analyze this," said Valley businessman and FREE Co-Chairman Bert Boeckmann. He added, however, that he doubted the current district could function more efficiently than two smaller ones.
"I don't see any way that this school district will perform properly without breaking it up," Boeckmann said.
While the school district has no official position on breakup, the report's results cheered some district leaders, who have been trying to reform the district rather than see it torn apart. "It's the only good news that's been floating around this district in a while," school board member David Tokofsky said. "The conclusion of the consultant appears to be that less thought went into this proposal than goes into this district."
The Los Angeles County Committee on School District Organization is scheduled to discuss the report on June 7 and recommend that the California Board of Education either approve or deny FREE's petition. The state panel is not required to act under any timetable. If approved by the state, the breakup proposal could go before voters for a final decision.
Approval by the state and county panels will be based on whether FREE's proposal meets conditions that cover everything from textbook supplies to racial balance. The report, written by Cardiff, Calif.-based consultants Caldwell Flores Winters Inc., concludes the breakup would meet most of those conditions.
But on several key points, the proposal falls short, according to the study.
The vast majority of Los Angeles Unified's roughly 69,600 white students would become part of the two Valley districts. After breakup, just 5.66 percent of Los Angeles Unified's students would be white, compared to 10.33 percent now. Even though the report's authors note that the percentage of white students is shrinking throughout the district, they argue that breakup could lead to greater segregation.
Thousands of children who currently attend school outside their neighborhoods could be forced to switch to campuses closer to home, with potentially disastrous results in some parts of the city. While the Valley would potentially benefit, losing about 8,060 students, already overcrowded schools in the central city would have to absorb the returning students. [The in bussed student create most of the overcrowding in the valley]
To house them all, Los Angeles Unified would need to buy 529 acres of land for new schools, costing more than $1 billion. And that money would come from the two new Valley districts. [According to the study The valley has to pay for the schools that LAUSD has failed to build near the students homes].
--Such financial details of the divorce could leave the two new districts burdened with debt from the start, while Los Angeles Unified would also be hard hit. Projections in the report say the northern Valley district would start out operating at a $113 million deficit, while the southern district would face a $90 million shortfall.
Those problems, however, do not necessarily mean the county committee will vote against FREE's petition. Committee members will decide for themselves whether the proposal meets the state's criteria, said Margo Minecki, a spokeswoman with the county's Office of Education.
"The committee will go through and make its own determinations," she said. "This consultant's report informs the decision but doesn't determine what that is."
By Erik Nelson, Staff Writer
A new blueprint presented Tuesday for Los Angeles Unified's massive school construction program puts the east San Fernando Valley at the bottom of the priority list among areas with severe crowding.
If the staff plan is accepted by the school board, it would delay construction of all but two high schools in the East Valley for years and force all schools in the area to go on a year-round calendar. With low priority and limited total funding, money could run out before the Valley's classroom-crowding problems are addressed.
"We are in a crisis. There is no room for children to attend school anymore," said Valley school board member Julie Korenstein after hearing the priority list. "The Valley has been basically shafted year after year after year. That is why the Valley wants to break away," she said. "We really need to look at the possibility of another bond measure."
New school construction projects should come first in the district's Belmont, Southeast and Central areas, officials said in the report, recommending fourth-lowest priority for the Valley, ahead of Hollywood. The priorities were based on two factors: the amount of crowding at each school and the number of years schools have been on a year-round schedule.
"This is a triage process. There are huge needs in every area of the district," Chief Operating Officer Howard Miller said during the meeting.
Officials presented the board with two lists, one if there is $1.9 billion in construction funding and the other with $1.2 billion.
The $1.2 billion proposal, which assumes the district will not benefit from a civil rights lawsuit to compel the state to give $900 million more in Proposition 1-A bond money, calls for three high schools, one middle school and one elementary school for the Valley at an estimated cost of $53.5 million. That would include only two high schools for the East Valley area.
If less than $1.2 billion materializes, then all Valley schools might have to wait until other areas' needs were met, officials said.
Officials played down the significance of the list, however. Miller said the lists are "really just data for the board," which could set its own priorities. The full board is scheduled to vote on a list at its June 13 meeting.
The $1.9 billion list calls for the construction of four high schools, two middle schools and three elementary schools in the Valley at an estimated cost of $69 million.
It would cost an estimated $9 billion to relieve all classroom crowding and return all schools to traditional calenders.
"Current funding sources, in the best possible scenarios, are insufficient to remedy this enormous shortage of seats," states the report by School Building Planning Director Kathi Littmann.
Officials said they looked at schools that had been neglected for the longest and had to endure year-round schedules.
For instance, Belmont High School will be an estimated 4,120 seats short in 2007 and has been on a year-round schedule for 19 years, putting it at the top of the priority list. School officials built a new high school for the area, [At a cost for 300 million dollars] but environmental problems prompted the school board not to get it finished and opened.
On the other hand, Monroe High School in North Hills will be an estimated 3,805 seats short and has been on a year-round calendar for four years, making it eighth on the priorities list. While Monroe is in the Valley, it is nonetheless being considered for overcrowding relief at the same time as other district schools because of its situation, Littmann said.
One possible remedy at Monroe might be to build new multistory academies or an entire new high school in place of one-story temporary classrooms or bungalows on the school's sprawling 36-acre campus, Littmann said.
North Hollywood High School, where students, parents and teachers protested against the July 1 conversion to a year-round calendar, is 15th on the list, with a projected shortfall of 1,555 seats in 2007.
The year-round schedule, known as the track system, alternates vacations for three students on three tracks, so only two-thirds of the student population is on campus at any one time.
With the $1.8 billion to $2 billion district officials hope to get -- although $900 million of that is doubt -- officials believe they can create room for 57,406 new seats. Of those, 28,130 will relieve 12 overcrowded high schools, 14,552 will relieve 17 overcrowded middle schools and 13,645 will relieve 26 overcrowded elementary schools. The plan also includes 9,566 seats to reduce class sizes, which would be financed by voter-initiated state bonds.
The report warns in bold type that even if all those plans are fulfilled, "within the next four to five years, every high school in the district will have to go year-round multitrack and every high school will have to continue year-round multitrack." Littmann said, however, that Valley schools are likely to go year-round in three years to make room for an increasing student population.
By David R. Baker, Staff Writer
The Los Angeles education system needs to build even more schools than previously thought, including five high schools in the San Fernando Valley, district officials said Thursday. The massive construction program would cost about $1 billion more than the district can afford.
The news only deepened a classroom shortage growing to crisis proportions in much of the Los Angeles Unified School District. Officials updating the district's long-range building plan told the school board Thursday that by 2006, they will face a shortage of 85,900 seats for students.
"Maybe we need to declare a state of emergency," said board member Caprice Young. Most of the growth will happen in the district's already packed high schools, which will fall 41,800 seats short by 2006.
The last long-range building plan, drafted in 1998, called for two new Valley high schools, both in the East Valley. The new plan adds three more campuses to that list: two in the East Valley and one in the West Valley. The East Valley schools would relieve overcrowding at Polytechnic, San Fernando, Sylmar and Van Nuys high schools, while the new West Valley school would relieve Monroe.
In addition, the updated plan calls for building 12 primary centers, three elementary schools and two middle schools in the Valley.
The district's effort to build new schools has become mired in problems ranging from contaminated land to neighborhood opposition. And yet, school officials are fast running out of other ways to house more students. Many campuses already operate on year-round, multitrack schedules designed to wedge in the maximum number of students. School parking lots and playgrounds have been steadily eroded by the addition of portable classrooms.
School board members will soon be faced with the politically charged task of setting priorities for the building program, priorities that will help determine which neighborhoods get new schools first. Some want to emphasize freeing students from long bus rides to uncrowded schools far from their homes. Others want to emphasize building enough classrooms to get schools off multitrack calendars and increase the number of days in a school year.
The board must also figure out how to pay for construction. Board member Julie Korenstein wondered Thursday why the state didn't set aside part of its surplus for construction. "There's probably going to be a $7 billion surplus," she said. "Building schools is a one-time expense. This is a golden opportunity." [If the entire state surplus was spent to build LASUD schools, LAUSD would still be short 2 Billion dollars]
LAUSD: Effect of a north-south Valley division is reportedly less extreme than breakup foes had feared.
By KRISTINA SAUERWEIN, Times Staff Writer
A new school district in the north San Fernando Valley would be poorer and more heavily Latino than a district proposed for the south Valley, but the gap is less extreme than some breakup opponents had feared, according to a preliminary report released Wednesday. Although containing no conclusions or recommendations, the thick two-volume "progress report" examined the feasibility of dismantling the nation's second-largest school district and creating two new Valley systems.
The document "will change as we receive additional information," said Pamela Johnson, secretary to the Los Angeles County Committee on School District Organization, whose 11 members are elected by school district governing boards in the county. The panel will make a recommendation to the state Board of Education by June 7 on whether to put the issue before voters.
At three public hearings before the county committee, opponents of secession from the Los Angeles Unified School District argued that poor, minority students would comprise 80% or more of the north Valley district, while the south district would be dominated by white, upper-middle-class students. But the report, based on census figures, showed that neither whites nor Latinos would represent a clear majority in either district.
The proposed north Valley district would have 118,093 students, with Latinos accounting for 48% of the student population and whites 36%. The per-capita income is $22,504. In comparison, the south Valley district would have 98,406 students, with Latinos making up 37% of the students and whites 50%. The per-capita income is $27,957. In both proposed districts, the percentage of Latino students would lag the current enrollment makeup of Los Angeles Unified, where 70% of the 711,000 students are Latino.
Stephanie Carter, a leader of Finally Restoring Excellence in Education, or FREE, the grass-roots group leading the L.A. Unified breakup effort, said she had not studied the report in detail but the preliminary findings come as no surprise. "People had preconceived notions about how the two districts would look," said Carter, one of a handful of people who attended the Wednesday morning meeting at the county education office headquarters in Downey.
Leaders of FREE have maintained the proposed
districts would be roughly comparable in ethnic and economic terms.
But Ana Soriano, who strongly opposes a breakup,
questioned the data. "If you really see the areas [in the proposed north
district], you will see immigrants who are not affluent," said Soriano, a
Sylmar mother of four. "Breakup would be awful."
She also criticized FREE for failing to make north
Valley residents aware of its plans. "People out here don't even know about
it," Soriano said Wednesday. [Their is no information
about the breakup plan, its opposition or the LACOE reports on line or at local
locations for the public to read]
The county is required by the state to ensure the proposed districts would not promote racial or ethnic discrimination or segregation, among other factors. Several committee members requested more information on the socioeconomic factors. "Over and over again, people are saying [the proposed districts] would be the haves and the have-nots," member Rachel Chavez said.
Although county education officials said they have "a pretty good handle" on the socioeconomic data, they said they are still gathering more information. The report was compiled by Caldwell Flores Winters Inc., a consulting group based in Cardiff by the Sea, and based on public comments and documents from the state and Los Angeles Unified.
LAUSD officials have not taken a stand on Valley school secession.
But Los Angeles Board of Education members, including President Genethia Hayes, said a district reorganization plan unveiled last month would give schools less bureaucracy and more autonomy. It would slash the district's huge central office and move power over budget and instruction to 11 new sub-districts, three of which are in the Valley. The Board of Education is expected to vote on the plan Tuesday.
OK, LAUSD, secondary schools are overcrowded. Must the automatic quick fix be year-round scheduling? This option is detrimental to educational opportunities and impacts sport and band programs as well. Let's get creative. Properties for temporary sites might be available; old schools might be reopened. Why not reopen Hughes Middle School in the West Valley?
And to all of you people out there who have opposed new school sites in your neighborhoods: Why is there this NIMBY reaction to new high schools? These kids -- our future -- will soon become adults. The only chance that you might have to influence them might be through that neighborhood school. Is some commercial or industrial enterprise more important than that? -- Bobbie Jensen, Tujunga