BILL WOULD ALLOW EXPANSION OF L.A. SCHOOL BOARD.

Byline: Paul Hefner Daily News Sacramento Bureau

A bill on Gov. Pete Wilson's desk would open the door for overhauling the board governing the Los Angeles Unified School District as part of the city's charter reform process.

If signed by Wilson, the measure would set aside the board's seven-member limit, clearing the way for it to expand - a move supporters see as a key to making the district more accountable to the public.

The two commissions set up to re-examine Los Angeles's charter are just beginning their work and have yet to even contemplate a restructuring of the district.

But the proposal could give them a powerful tool in addressing longstanding complaints that the district is out of touch with constituents, said David Fleming, a leading advocate of charter reform.

``In effect, you could create a board, if the voters so chose, that would perhaps take a hard look at the administrative apparatus of the LAUSD and modify it,'' Fleming said. ``This might be the way to get change in the LAUSD.''

Assemblyman Bob Hertzberg, D-Van Nuys, said he wrote the bill, AB 281, to give the charter reform commissions a chance to address the relationship between the city and the district.

``I think it creates a much greater connection between the operation of the city and the operation of the school district,'' Hertzberg said.

The city's charter established the school board and the city once had formal oversight of the school system. In addition, a provision in state law specifies that the board should have seven members.

Hertzberg's bill would allow the board's size - so long as got no smaller than seven - to be determined by the charter. Any change in the charter would have to ultimately be approved by voters.

Wilson has yet to take a position on the bill, which quietly passed both houses of the Legislature without attracting any opposition. The Assembly endorsed the bill 76-0, while the Senate approved it on a vote of 36-0.

District officials did not return calls for comment on the proposal. But both critics of the district and backers of charter reform were quick to embrace the idea as a way to boost representation of the San Fernando Valley.

``I've always said, you could go to Simi Valley and see your school board member in the supermarket. How often, with a district the size of L.A.'s size do you even see your member? They'd have to be more responsive,'' said former Assemblywoman Paula Boland, R-Granada Hills.

Boland said she would immediately write Wilson and urge him to sign Hertzberg's legislation.

Boland, a longtime advocate for breaking up the district, was one of 15 people citywide elected to a seat one of the city's two charter reform commissions.

She said that she plans to make changing the structure of the district part of her agenda as a commission member.

Fleming said one possibility would be to gear a restructuring of the board to the school district's organization of clusters - groupings that connect high schools with the middle and elementary schools that feed into them.