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See School District Breakup | Larry Calemine Head of LAFCO Is Confident Agency Can Handle Secession Study
Education: Meeting with groups from throughout district, leaders say
school breakup push must take priority.
By KRISTINA SAUERWEIN, Times Staff Writer
Leaders of the stalled secession campaign said
during a citywide forum Saturday that breaking up the massive Los Angeles school
district should take precedence over their drive to split the San Fernando
Valley from Los Angeles.
"More people are dissatisfied with the school
district than with the city of Los Angeles," said Richard Close, chairman
of Valley VOTE, the group pushing for the San Fernando Valley to form its own
city. "Never before has there been such a force behind this issue. We have
to seize the momentum."
About 110 community leaders, parents, teachers and
politicians from the South Bay, Eastside, Westside and the Valley attended the
three-hour meeting Saturday to discuss their common interest in dismantling the
710,000-student Los Angeles Unified School District, the nation's
second-largest.
"We are not here to gripe about the
problems," said Close, although everyone agreed that recent controversies
have spurred the momentum.
Those problems include the power struggle between
the Los Angeles Board of Education and Supt. Ruben Zacarias. The toxic
contamination at the Belmont Learning Complex and two schools in South Gate. Low
test scores. Tangled layers of bureaucracy. Overcrowding. Outdated textbooks and
library books. Asbestos. And on and on.
"The district is totally out of
control," Close said at the forum, held at Valley Presbyterian Hospital in
Van Nuys. "Time is running out. There's only one opportunity to educate a
child. We must move quickly."
By February, Close said, he hopes the group can
gather and submit to state officials at least 65,000 signed and verified
petitions, a move that could help prompt legislation and support among local and
state school board members.
City secessionists from the Valley and Harbor
areas suffered a major setback in September when the Local Agency Formation
Commission, the nine-member panel overseeing secession studies, estimated
completion of the studies could take as long as four years--twice the previous
prediction.
Although Saturday's forum was sponsored by Valley
VOTE, those attending--including mayoral candidate Steve Soboroff and Los
Angeles Councilman Joel Wachs--generally agreed that people of all backgrounds
and from all parts of the city must unite to successfully break up the district.
"No system will work unless everyone buys
into it," said Wachs, generating a round of applause.
For more than a decade, groups in the Valley,
Carson, Lomita and South-Central Los Angeles have advocated forming separate
school districts. Saturday's meeting was the first time the groups met and
agreed to work together as part of a new coalition called the All-District
Alliance for School Reorganization.
As Los Angeles Unified faced
an onslaught of bad news, in the past month politicians--including Soboroff and
Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa (D-Los Angeles), also a mayoral candidate,
began to consider splitting up LAUSD.
State Sen. Richard Alarcon (D-Sylmar), who for
seven years has supported dividing up the district, sent a letter Nov. 10
requesting that the state Senate Office of Research undertake a study on how
smaller school systems can "provide better accountability to the needs of
students, parents and teachers."
In the study, Alarcon wants the state to study
other large urban school districts that have undergone breakup, as well as
evaluate options for how LAUSD could be divided into districts of no more than
100,000 students.
State Sen. Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles) is
drafting legislation to create smaller districts.
"Rather than having chunks of the district
break off, we're looking into a comprehensive citywide plan," said
spokesman Bill Mabie.
Earlier this month, the Little Hoover Commission,
the state's watchdog agency, recommended the appointment of a panel of community
leaders and professionals to examine breaking up the district, which it called
"a disturbingly dysfunctional organization."
So dysfunctional, breakup activists said, that
even the well-regarded Ramon C. Cortines, who will soon be interim
superintendent, probably cannot repair the huge mess.
"We have no time to waste," said Yvonne
Chan, principal of the Vaughn Next Century Learning Center, a highly praised
charter school in Pacoima.
Chan proposed that the alliance divide into four
geographic areas but share resources, work together and meet regularly,
beginning in a week or two.
"We want to take charge" when Cortines
becomes superintendent on Jan. 16, Chan said.
Meanwhile, members agreed to seek more people
reflecting the city's ethnic and geographic diversity, as well as form
committees to research issues such as boundaries, costs and the secession
process.
District officials have warned that a breakup is
more complicated than it appears. It could even hurt the students, said Gordon
Wohlers, an assistant superintendent in charge of policy, research and
development for LAUSD.
With an estimated 14,500 students being bused
because of overcrowding, returning students to their home schools would leave
many campuses even more squeezed for space.
Los Angeles school board President Genethia Hayes
called the breakup movement "hysteria" resulting from the board's bold
actions and said she "is not going to lose a lot of sleep over it."
Instead, Hayes said she will focus her energy on
improving student achievement and reforming the district. "By the time
these people finish gathering their petitions, looking at the legal issues and
wrangling--and believe me there will be fighting--over how it's going to work
and who gets what, they will see a district that works."
Leaders of United Teachers
Los Angeles oppose breaking up the district because the resulting school systems
could create more layers of bureaucracy and diminish clout in Sacramento, said
John Perez, a vice president with UTLA, the 41,000-member union that represents
district teachers, nurses, librarians and psychologists.
"We will have a larger number of districts,
each with its own bureaucracy," Perez said. "Each will have its school
board, its superintendent, its deputy superintendent, the deputies to the deputy
superintendents."
But more school districts would also mean "we
could have board meetings in our communities," said Andrew Mardesich, who
is leading efforts to form the Harbor area into its own city, although he too is
focusing on an LAUSD breakup. "We would have board members who know the
South Bay, because for most of Los Angeles, the South Bay isn't on anyone's
radar screen."
Mardesich and other South Bay activists would like
to see a 90,000-student district that would include students from Lomita, San
Pedro, Wilmington, Harbor City, Carson, Gardena and the eastern part of Rancho
Palos Verdes.
"I know it won't be easy," he said.
"But if we could give students a better education, it is worth it."
Development: The grove on the former property of Edgar Rice Burroughs is being cleared for a housing tract
By HOLLY EDWARDS, Special to The Times
TARZANA Construction crews began uprooting a stand of stately old trees Wednesday on land once owned by Edgar Rice Burroughs after Los Angeles city officials determined there was nothing they could do to stop them.
But in response to complaints from neighbors, Manhattan Holding Co. of Long Beach agreed to preserve 42 trees, of about 290 total. The company plans to build a 30-home subdivision on the 18-acre site on Tarzana Drive.
Residents who live near the property expressed dismay. "We're devastated, but unfortunately there's so few of us on Tarzana Drive that we couldn't really do anything to stop it," said Susanne Belcher, a 15-year resident of Tarzana Drive and member of the Tarzana Property Owners Assn. "Emotionally, when I heard about it, I just sat down and cried. Cutting those trees down is like taking away Tarzana's history."
The company agreed two weeks ago to delay clearance of the property pending a review of the project by the city. But City Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski and representatives from the city Street Tree Division met with the developer last week and determined the company had a legal right to remove the trees. Miscikowski spokeswoman Lisa Levy said she was pleased the developer has agreed to preserve some trees.
"We're disappointed that we couldn't save more of the trees, but we're very appreciative of what the developer has agreed to do," Levy said. "He has a permit to remove all of them, so he's doing more than he has to."
The developer will preserve about 30 trees along the southern edge of the property bordering El Caballero Country Club, and about a dozen trees along the north end bordering Tarzana Drive. Robert Davis, president of Manhattan Holding Co., said he sympathizes with the residents but said his project will improve the neighborhood. "I understand why people feel the way they do, but we believe the development that we're going to put there will be an improvement to the community," he said.
The project is south of Ventura Boulevard, between
Mecca Avenue and Avenida Oriente.
In 1919, the land was purchased by Burroughs,
creator of the Tarzan stories and founder of Tarzana, and made up part of his
sprawling Tarzana Ranch.
Most of the trees were planted between 1910 and
1912. The stand includes such tree species as coast redwoods, coast live
oaks,
beef wood and sequoia sempervirens.
The city identified two smaller trees, a cedar and
a crape myrtle, for relocation, but Levy said city officials were unable to find
a home for them.
The developer is required to replace each tree his company clears with a sapling, and two saplings must be planted for each of the two oaks that will be cleared. Additionally, Davis has offered to widen Tarzana Drive and plant 65 new trees along the narrow residential street. It will take a week to 10 days to level the trees and about three weeks to remove them, Davis said. Because the trees are old and have weak root systems, they will be pushed over with bulldozers before being cut up and hauled away, he said.