Hard Part Begins for Backers of School Split : Education: Proponents of an L.A. district breakup say they must resolve differences to reach their goal.

After winning a long-fought battle to give voters the power to more easily dismantle the city school district, a host of groups with longstanding differences now face the larger task of conquering the system without dividing into warring factions themselves.

Converting disenchantment with the Los Angeles Unified School District into voter support will require a plan that combines school reforms and educational philosophies with balanced racial and ethnic diversity, breakup advocates say.

And to do that, competing ethnic and political groups--including parents and other school activists--must first settle historic personal and political differences, say campaign supporters.

“There isn’t room for personalities,” said state Assemblywoman Paula L. Boland (R-Granada Hills), author of legislation signed by Gov. Pete Wilson Wednesday easing the way for splitting up the district.

“The only thing there’s room for is people who will get the work done. It has to be done right . . . and not for personal agendas and not for personal goals.”

Boland said she hopes to continue to lead the effort as it moves from the state Capitol to communities in the San Fernando Valley, south Los Angeles and the South Bay. She called on supporters to steer clear of personal and political bickering.

But only days after Wilson signed the bill dramatically lowering the number of signatures required to get a breakup initiative before the voters, from about 386,000 signatures to roughly 72,000, several developments have revealed some of the emerging players and conflicts:

* Seeking to lead the campaign, the 31st District Parent Teacher Student Assn. asked about 50 people--including community members, as well as school district and union officials--to join a task force to draft a breakup plan.

* Although splitting the district has been opposed by its employees’ unions, Connie Moreno, staff representative for the California School Employees Assn., which represents 4,600 school and office clerks, said, “We’re beginning to think we should just throw in the towel and that it might be easier to deal with a smaller district.”

* Mike Roos, head of the school district’s 2-year-old LEARN reform program, said he has not ruled out the possibility that he would eventually join the breakup campaign.

“We proved if in fact you are able to galvanize will--and clearly there is will in the San Fernando Valley--then effective leaders will bring the differing, superficial conflicts into focus,” he said. “I have a current obligation to LEARN--period. But whatever I do in the future is certainly open to what seems interesting at the time.”

District officials have argued that the LEARN reforms provide more benefits to students than any breakup plan would do.

* The South Bay cities of Carson and Lomita are already well along in their campaigns to carve out school districts along municipal boundaries. Many residents there say they will not support a breakup of the Los Angeles district, of which the two cities are a part, unless they get their own districts.

* Members of Valley Advocates for Local Unified Education--a long-dormant San Fernando Valley group--resurfaced last week and began plans for citywide meetings. They may compete for leadership of the campaign with members of the PTSA, education activists say.

* Former school board member and U.S. Rep. Bobbi Fiedler, who had sought to assist Boland with the breakup effort, agreed last week to stay out of the public debate. Critics said her participation would reopen political wounds from her leadership of a fight in the Valley against mandatory busing during the 1970s.

* Several Latino activists said they will develop their own plans for dividing the district, in part because they fear that a plan created by others would shortchange predominantly Latino communities.

“People are no longer saying, ‘Will we break up?’ ” said Diana Dixon-Davis, a San Fernando Valley activist who has sought secession for a decade. “It’s, ‘When we break up, this is what we want.’ This is going to be long and drawn out, but we don’t have to convince people why. People all over the district are saying, ‘We’re fed up.’ ”

Some of the efforts, however, are viewed skeptically by some politicians and activists who said internal wrangling could give opponents plenty of opportunity to defeat a breakup effort.

“It’s amateur hour,” said one political observer.

So far, current and former school board members have refrained from supporting any of the emerging groups.

School board member Julie Korenstein, who supports a single San Fernando Valley school district, said she wants to see whether a single coalition emerges to draft a breakup plan before joining.

“I’m very selective,” she said. “I will not be involved with anything that smacks of trying to segregate schools--that would be very offensive to me.”

To be successful, campaign leaders must convince voters they can create smaller, more efficient systems without replicating the bureaucracy of the 640,000-student Los Angeles school district.

“You’re going to have to approach this with a sense of humor and a lot of note pads. There will be egos and differences,” said state Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica), who wrote legislation to ensure that new districts would not be racially segregated.

Wilson is expected to sign the bill this week. It protects current school desegregation agreements and funding levels.

Hayden acknowledged that his legislation could make it tougher for some areas of the city, such as the Westside, to withdraw from the school district.

But he warned breakup opponents against trying to use legal roadblocks, such as discrimination lawsuits, to block a breakup plan that conforms to his legislation.

“The defenders of the status quo are saying, ‘Well, it’ll never happen,’ but I think they’re in denial,” Hayden said. “This is under way, and these guidelines can be applied effectively.”

But LAUSD Supt. Sid Thompson said the Hayden bill will make it difficult to create a plan that divides the district’s students fairly. The district, he said, will examine breakup proposals to determine their merit.

“I take it seriously,” Thompson said. “There are some people who I don’t think are vicious folks and who don’t have political agendas who are looking at this. We can work with these folks. But I also see the opposite.”

Added Thompson, “There are some who see the wounded bear and who want to shoot it.”

Former school board member Roberta Weintraub, a breakup supporter, said she is unsure what effect the Hayden legislation will have on new districts because of its restrictions.

“With Tom Hayden’s bill, it seems as if a breakup doesn’t accomplish a great deal,” she said. “One of my concerns is to go through this. . . . What is the end result? What will be left?”

Maintaining protections for minority students is of paramount importance to Tony Alcala, a Sun Valley schools activist who supports dividing the district.

While Alcala lauded Boland for her legislation, he said he and other Latinos are distrustful of her motives because she supported Proposition 187--the statewide initiative that seeks to eliminate social services for illegal immigrants. He said Latino parents worry that breakup plans may penalize immigrant children and their families by draining money and experienced teachers away from poorer neighborhoods.

“Are we going to let a lot of racist, prejudiced people decide what’s best for us, or are we going to be given equal opportunity on the decision-making?” Alcala said. “We can’t wait to see what people are going to give us as handouts.”

Alcala said he is talking with other Latino parents in the eastern San Fernando Valley about devising their own breakup plan.

While Valley residents are just starting to think of how exactly to carve up the school system, two South Bay cities have long-held plans.

In 1993, voters in Carson voted by a 2-1 margin to pursue forming a city district.

“I’m not interested in reporting to the city of Los Angeles in any way,” said Carolyn Harris of the Carson Unified School District Formation Committee. “We actually have no rights and privileges in the city of Los Angeles.”

Operating under the current requirement that they gather signatures from 25% of the city’s registered voters, organizers have been working for nearly a year and hope to present their petition to county education officials next month. The Boland law reduces the signature requirement to 8% of the number of voters who cast ballots in the last gubernatorial election.

A Carson district would consist of about 16,000 students at one high school and 15 elementary and middle schools. Harris said she is confident a city district would be ethnically and socioeconomically diverse enough to meet the criteria set by county education guidelines, as well as by Hayden’s bill.

“Carson itself is a naturally integrated city,” said Harris, who is African American.

Harris said her group would object to any division plan that did not provide for a Carson district. “The goal is clearly a Carson Unified School District,” she said.

Parents in neighboring Lomita also want a unified school district, although Bob Hargrave, a former city councilman, said he would consider joining with adjacent cities if necessary.

“I believe that anything that’s smaller than L.A. Unified right now is an advantage, and if Lomita is included with San Pedro, Wilmington or Carson, that’d be a plus,” Hargrave said. “I favor anything that’s smaller and closer to home.”

The Committee to Unify Lomita Schools currently has a petition pending before the state Board of Education, which is expected to take up the matter next year. The proposed new district would contain two elementary schools and one combination middle school-high school.

Gardena is also exploring the idea of a separate school district. Ironically, Warren Furutani, the former Los Angeles Board of Education member, was hired by the city of Gardena last month as its first education consultant.

Furutani, a Gardena resident, said a withdrawal from the school district he once headed is only one of many options the city is examining as a way to improve the performance of its students.

“There’s no groundswell” of support for secession in Gardena, Furutani said. “I don’t think right off the bat smaller is better than bigger. You have to make the case for it.”