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In the end, the Los Angeles County school reorganization committee -- the Chicken Little of LAUSD breakup -- turned out to be Foghorn Leghorn, a big, pompous joke.
The county Department of Education issued a report [Note the report was issued 7 days prior to the vote and on paper only - A request to make it available on line was declined by LACOE] full of holes, raising questions about whether breaking up the 712,000 student school district was in the best interest of students and taxpayers.
The report found the plan by the FREE breakup movement met most of the conditions spelled out in California law but questioned whether the small and dwindling number of white students would be evenly divided. Also, whether two Valley districts could financially provide as good (or, in this case, bad) an education as LAUSD has provided them.
The report was pathetic. Even worse was what the 11-member Los Angeles County Committee on School District Organization, charged with making a formal recommendation to the state, did with it.
The panel waffled. Committee member Brenda Gottfried, a Santa Monica/Malibu Unified school board member who recently ran unsuccessfully to represent part of the Valley in the state Legislature, didn't bother to show up, so the committee deadlocked 5-5. In other words, it did not make a recommendation, which will probably be construed as a no vote.
What's the significance of this? Absolutely nothing. The state Board of Education possesses the only real authority to decide whether to break up the district. The county is a meaningless bureaucratic organization that is there to confuse and muddle the issue, presumably for the entrenched interests of the failed educational system.
At least two of its members recognized that fact. Committee Chairman Lloyd de Llamas, the former city manager of Monterey Park, recognized the fatal flaw in the county's own specious report, that LAUSD is an overwhelmingly minority district and along with the proposed districts "will be even more minority" in a few years, so desegregation isn't an issue.
Kathryn Blankinship, a school board member for the San Gabriel Unified School District, questioned why the county panel would stand in the way of the democratic process when other communities wanted their own school districts. It's a good question. Obviously, the Los Angeles County Committee on School District Organization didn't want to be on the record as being for or against democracy.
This is no way to engage the legitimate democratic aspirations of a community of nearly 1.5 million people. And we have every reason to believe this political farce will continue at the state level. More and more, it looks like if the people of the San Fernando Valley want political justice of any sort, we will have to tell it to a judge.
Education: L.A. County Committee on School District Organization votes not to recommend to state that plan for two Valley districts be put on ballot. [ A panel not elected by the voters trumps the rights of the voters on the issue]
By KRISTINA SAUERWEIN, Times Staff Writer
DOWNEY -- A plan to dismantle the nation's second-largest school district and form two school systems in the San Fernando Valley failed to win approval Wednesday from a Los Angeles County panel charged with recommending to the state whether to put the issue before voters. The 11-member Los Angeles County Committee on School District Organization voted 5 to 5, with one member absent, on a plan to split the 711,000-student Los Angeles Unified School District into three autonomous systems.
The proposal required a majority vote from members, who are 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. Brenda Gottfried, a school board member with the Santa Monica-Malibu Unified School District, was absent for personal reasons, county officials said.
Despite the outcome, school secession leaders refused to accept defeat. "We have to remember that this is for the children," said former assemblywoman and breakup leader Paula Boland. "We're still going to the state in full force."
During an emotional and contentious five-hour public meeting, county panel members, breakup activists, LAUSD officials, parents and teachers debated the proposal created by the citizens group Finally Restoring Excellence in Education, or FREE. The county panel will forward FREE's proposal and its recommendation to the state Board of Education. The state, which has no timeline, has not yet determined who would vote in an election--all district voters or just those in the areas proposed for independence.
The county panel based its recommendation on whether FREE's proposal met nine legal criteria required under state law. After much debate, members decided it met all but the requirement that the proposed districts have sufficient funding. "That was the big one," said Lloyd de Llamas, committee chairman and a former city manager of several Southern California municipalities. He voted in favor of FREE's proposal, in part because he wanted the issue to go before voters, he said.
Last week, a consultant's report found that FREE's proposal met most of the state's breakup criteria but could promote ethnic segregation and lack sufficient funding. The findings were based on public comments, U.S. census data and state and local school district documents. FREE leaders criticized the report, claiming it lacked pertinent data and made inaccurate assumptions.
Even county committee members seemed perplexed. "I'm not a CPA," said Frank Bostrom, a business owner and a community planner in the South Bay. Bostrom, who voted against the plan, said he was concerned about how the prospective loss of desegregation funding would affect the three districts, particularly those with highly regarded magnet programs.
The report found that a breakup would decrease the percentage of white students in the remaining LAUSD from 11% to 6% of the total student population. Although the white student population is already decreasing in LAUSD, the report stated that a split could accelerate the process and impede L.A. Unified's ability to maintain its current desegregation program.
"I'm not blind to the ills and ilks of LAUSD, but dividing into three districts won't make the situation better," Bostrom said. "The districts would be off to a financially shaky start." Opponents who attended the meeting, including United Teachers-Los Angeles officials, warned that FREE's proposal could generate segregation-related lawsuits. Terence McConville, L.A. Unified's director of litigation research, told committee members the district was concerned about the displacement of 8,000 students who are bused into the Valley from crowded neighborhoods.
A breakup would require the remaining LAUSD to build at least four more middle and high schools at roughly $138 million, McConville said. "There's no room for the students," he said. "It would be a hardship."
Several committee members said they are not opposed to breaking up L.A. Unified, but they would have preferred to see even smaller districts proposed in the Valley. The proposed Valley districts would be among the five largest in the state, according to the state Department of Education.
By Dominic Berbeo, Staff Writer
Hitting back at a critical county report, leaders of the San Fernando Valley school breakup movement challenged the financial analysis and promised an open enrollment policy that would maintain student racial balances in Los Angeles Unified.
The consultant's report for a county education committee set to vote on the breakup plan Wednesday found the proposal for two Valley school districts met all state standards except for those regarding financial viability and impact on racial makeup.
After studying the inch-thick report for several days, leaders of FREE (Finally Restoring Excellence to Education) said the study was based on false assumptions about finances and ignored their commitment to allow students from outside the Valley to continue to enroll in Valley schools. On Monday, FREE leaders met with the consultants and committee members to discuss the report.
"Neighborhood schools are what this nation was built on," said Paula Boland, FREE's co-chairwoman who authored the legislation making breakup of the schools and the city possible when she served in the state Assembly. "The new districts will be both racially diverse and make fiscal sense."
FREE was unable to provide financial data backing its claims because it didn't have enough time to study the report, Boland said.
The group, which gathered more than 21,000 signatures on petitions calling for creation of two Valley districts, was responding to a private breakup report contracted by the Los Angeles County Committee on School District Organization. The panel's decision on FREE's breakup plan will go to the state Board of Education, which will determine whether to put the matter before voters.
The issues of racial balance and fiscal revenues were the only two of 19 secession criteria questioned in a theoretical breakup scenario presented by the private consulting firm, Caldwell Flores Winters of Cardiff, Calif. The $65,000 report took four months to complete and was released Wednesday.
The report found that the new districts would have to pay about $1.4 billion to compensate the Los Angeles Unified School District for the loss of less-crowded facilities in the Valley.
It also found that although only 10 percent of Los Angeles Unified's students are white, half of them live in the Valley. A breakup would reduce the LAUSD white student population to 5 percent, and leave the district with an additional 8,000 students currently being bused to Valley schools.
Boland refuted the findings. "In our estimation," she said, "We've met all the criteria. We're only talking about 5 percent of the student body, which is an insignificant impact."
Harold Gutenberg, an attorney and FREE consultant, called the estimated amount the new districts would have to pay unfair because Valley residents paid for a large share of all facilities district wide through their taxes. "What is more," he said, "individuals will still be able to send their children to Valley schools. We plan to operate on an open enrollment basis."
LAUSD officials said they hoped to clarify issues regarding the proposed split during Wednesday's meeting. "The asset split is extremely complex, and we hope that discussion on Wednesday will help clarify the report," said Gordon Wohlers, assistant superintendent for policy research and development for Los Angeles Unified.
The state Board of Education, which is not required to act under any timetable, will decide whether to put the breakup proposal to a public vote and who will be included in the vote. A vote could include either residents who live within the proposed new districts or the entire area covered by the LAUSD.
By Erik Nelson, Staff Writer
A citizens group pushing to create two new Valley school districts said Friday that a preliminary county analysis criticizing the proposal contained statistical inadequacies, faulty assumptions and was based on `'purely hypothetical situations."
Finally Restoring Excellence to Education raised questions about the report, which was released in its final form Wednesday by a consultant for the Los Angeles County Committee on School District Organization. The committee is scheduled to vote on FREE's breakup plan Wednesday.
Paula Boland, co-chairwoman of FREE, said the consultant's final report actually supports the group's breakup plan. While the analysis by Caldwell Flores Winters Inc. of Cardiff, Calif., cited serious problems with breaking up the Los Angeles Unified School District, it also said the plan met most conditions mandated by state law, she said.
"The consultant's conclusions found that 17 of the criteria required to establish the proposed districts were substantially met. The report raised concerns in only two areas and those are disputable," FREE said in a prepared statement. The group said it would "continue to examine the report through the weekend" and would publicize its findings Monday.
The final report concluded that breaking up the district would leave the new Valley districts with substantial debt and lead to overcrowding and racial segregation in the LAUSD. But FREE's statement said its review of an April 5 draft of the same report "found not only several statistical inadequacies, but also faulty assumptions and conclusions based on purely hypothetical situations."
Corrected numbers, the statement said, were never produced by the consultant that prepared the report. The consultant could not be reached late Friday.
Meanwhile, school district officials also were studying the report. A top LAUSD administrator said the analysis showed that a breakup would accelerate overcrowding in San Pedro and the Westside, forcing all high schools in those areas to switch to year-round schedules to accommodate students no longer attending Valley schools.
The report "generally tells the truth. It identifies the main issues," said Gordon Wohlers, assistant superintendent of policy, research and development for the district. Wohlers also questioned the fiscal soundness of the new Valley districts. The report said the new districts would have to fork over $1.4 billion to compensate Los Angeles Unified for the loss of less-crowded facilities located in the Valley.
"I just don't see how that's going to be paid by the newly formed districts," Wohlers said. Wohlers also said the report is based on 2-year-old data, and that conditions have steadily worsened since then. In 1998, more than 697,000 students were enrolled in the district. In October 1999, student enrollment climbed to 711,187, and officials are predicting a 12,000-student increase for the next school year.
By Greg Gittrich, Staff Writer
Finding fault with the new school construction plan, interim Superintendent Ramon C. Cortines unexpectedly called on Wednesday for a multibillion-dollar local bond measure to ease overcrowding in the San Fernando Valley and other areas that rate a low priority.
Cortines, floating his 11th-hour plan during an interview with the Daily News, said he hoped voters would rally behind it for the sake of the children and to prevent inequities in the district's building plan. "Some of the conditions in our schools as it relates to overcrowding are as bad as Third World countries," Cortines said.
"If people of good will come together and put aside the politics and the turf issues, a bond could pass. It's too bad that kids can't vote or it would definitely pass. We need to face this issue head on and depoliticize it."
A new facilities master plan, released Tuesday, concluded that every school in the district would soon have to go on a year-round schedule because there wasn't enough money or time to build new schools. The plan put new school construction in the east San Fernando Valley at the bottom of the priority list among areas with severe overcrowding.
The new plan hits schools like North Hollywood High hard. The campus is set to begin year-round classes July 5 because of overcrowding. Portable classrooms already have taken over space for playgrounds and parking lots.
On Wednesday, students pushed through crowded corridors and sat at temporary desks in the gymnasium to participate in a special tobacco and alcohol awareness program. Yet, the school is not scheduled to get prioritized relief for overcrowding because other campuses have it worse.
"We are out of space. But you got schools on the Eastside and in other areas that have been going year-round for a long time and still busing students," said Assistant Principal Dave Smith. Given the controversies around the Proposition BB bond issue and who will succeed Cortines when he leaves June 30, the district would face a difficult battle to get more money from taxpayers.
"It's simple to me. I don't think that people are going to be amenable to an additional school bond until they feel the existing school bond is working," said Steve Soboroff, chairman of the citizens committee that oversees Proposition BB spending. Soboroff, who plans to step down from the committee in July to concentrate on his mayoral bid, would not say whether he supported Cortines' proposal
"Taxpayers have to feel that they can have some local control and that the money can be spent well with real oversight that is respected," he said. "The mood of the voters is not for this at all. The mood of the people is not to throw good money into this system."
Cortines already has huddled with several board members about the idea and even left open the possibility of working with the district past his scheduled departure date in a lesser role to help the measure pass. "I've invested too much in this system to just walk away. . . . I've seen what goes on in the district's overcrowded classrooms, overcrowded hallways, overcrowded restrooms and overcrowded eating areas," he said.
Cortines called the new master plan an outline and pledged to organize a facilities summit this month to craft a detailed and specific construction program for the proposed bond measure. "For people to take schools off the priority list because there is not enough money is unconscionable," Cortines said.
Under his plan, voters would be able to see exactly what projects would be funded and where new schools would be built. He said the measure also would give an oversight board more teeth to monitor the work and would include incentives and penalties for contractors. "I can talk about reorganization and I can talk about achievement, but I think the major issue that this district faces is space," he said.
"There is no master plan for schools throughout the entire district. It's not just the Valley. We need to lay out a plan that this entire system can look at and no longer have to say it's my turn to get a school vs. someone else's turn.
"For too long, we talked about certain areas that have been neglected. It's a crisis throughout the entire system." Board President Genethia Hayes said she would "absolutely support" fighting for a new local bond measure.
"I don't know if it would pass, given our current situation with us trying to get all of these reforms done. But it has more of a chance of passing now than it would have had a year ago," Hayes said.
"If people knew which schools were going to be taken care of and where schools were going to be built, I don't know that it wouldn't pass."
To date, the district has $1.2 billion available for new school construction, a figure that could swell to $1.9 billion if the district benefits from a civil rights lawsuit to compel the state to give it a greater share of money from state bond Proposition 1A.
Since the new school board was elected last year, the district has overhauled its building plan several times, each time reducing the scope because of financial constraints.
"We will run out of seats in 2005. We will be thousands and thousands of seats short," said board member Caprice Young. "There literally won't be places for kids to sit. That's not an acceptable outcome."