A HARD LESSON LEARNED ABOUT LAUSD TACTICS.

Byline: Steve Young

THE woeful saga of Ivy Academia - a new charter school in Warner Center that should be open, but has been denied city clearance - is one of educators trying to educate children, and bureaucrats standing in their way.

If you listen to what district officials say about this immorality tale, you'd swear that Ivy is run by the most insincere group of administrators to come down the Woodland Hills pike. They will tell you that Ivy should not open its new permanent location until all safety requirements are met.

But they won't tell you that they refuse to allow Ivy students to temporarily use any of the LAUSD's vacant schools in the meantime.

They will speak of their concern for the children, and how we need to have the utmost assurance that the kids are, above all, safe.

But they won't speak of the fear our children deal with in the hallways, classrooms and so many schoolyards at LAUSD schools.

They will speak of Ivy's need for an elevator in its two-story building for those who cannot walk, even though Ivy currently has no handicapped students or teachers.

But they won't speak of the many LAUSD schools that have no elevators, nor how the district has not asked them to add one, even though the schools actually have handicapped children attending. Nor will they mention that LAUSD Supervisor Jean Brown waited until one working day prior to Ivy's opening to send an official to the school and inform administrators that they needed the elevator - at the mere cost of some $300,000.

They will tell you that the toilet-roll holders in the brand new Ivy bathrooms are extended, rather than recessed, as required by code.

But they won't tell you of the girls who refuse to use LAUSD bathrooms because of their constant state of filth.

They will speak of their concern that schools teach our children values and ethical behavior.

But they definitely won't speak of the evening phone calls from LAUSD officials - the day before Ivy was to open - telling the school's parents, many of whom are Russian immigrants, that Ivy would probably not open on time, and that no one seems to know when it will. They won't mention that they were trying to intimidate Ivy parents into taking their kids out of the school.

They will tell you that Ivy has not done the necessary traffic study to gain occupancy.

But they won't tell you that the study cannot proceed until school starts.

They also won't tell you that they had asked Ivy to come up with a $30,000 bond to get temporary occupancy authority. Nor will they tell you that when Ivy officials brought in the $30,000, they were told that West Valley Councilman Dennis Zine refused to give approval until the school received the blessing of the Woodland Hills Community Council; or that the council was unable to deal with the issue until a later date, a date after Ivy was set to open.

Was this all a set up, Catch-22 or just plain gotcha? LAUSD and city officials will tell you they're standing in the way of Ivy's opening ``for the children.''

What they won't tell you is that they are so afraid of losing state funding that they will do everything they can to forestall or outright abort an entrepreneurial education for those same children.

And they certainly won't tell you that instead of being intimidated by the LAUSD's darkness-of-the-night, shameless tactics, Ivy families rushed to the school to ask what they could do to help. Parents stayed up past midnight calling other families to explain that the distortions the LAUSD was insidiously spreading weren't true, and that they would never give up fighting for their children.

What happened to the days when school districts were all about serving dreams, not crushing them; about getting kids to school, not stopping them?

Perhaps when school board and City Council elections next take place, families will use their votes to bring us back to those days.