CENTRAL CITY GROUP FILES TO QUIT LAUSD.

Byline: Kimberly Kindy Daily News Staff Writer

An inner-city school breakup group has beat the San Fernando Valley to the punch, becoming the first under a new law to submit a proposal to carve a 130,000-student slice from the Los Angeles Unified School District.

The proposed Inner-City Unified School District could better serve the South Central Los Angeles children, the formation committee contends in a letter submitted Thursday to the Los Angeles County Committee on School District Organization.

The group also filed a proposed district map and request for a petition to begin gathering signatures. The action was the first legal step in a process expected to take two to three years.

Organizers said they were tired of being dictated to by the massive LAUSD - and wanted to develop their own plan before others submitted rival breakup proposals.

"We had no intention of being caught flat-footed when some other proposal comes in," said Clinton Simmons, one of three chief petitioners for the group.

"I believe in doing for yourself - that's the way I was raised. That's the only way it's going to be done," Simmons said.

Board of Education member Barbara Boudreaux, who represents the area, has helped organize the community breakup meetings that led to Thursday's filing.

Her husband, Albert Boudreaux 3rd, is volunteering as the group's attorney.

"They had some very valid reasons for wanting to break off," she said, "and I can't argue with them as a citizen, taxpayer and as a board member."

In the San Fernando Valley, breakup proponents say they have learned the same lesson as parents in South Central - they cannot wait on others to devise a breakup plan.

Valley activists Stephanie Carter and Diana Dixon-Davis say Mayor Richard Riordan and Assemblywoman Paula Boland have dropped the ball in fulfilling their 6-month-old pledge to spearhead the breakup movement.

The two parents have organized a public meeting in Chatsworth for Saturday to kick off a Valley breakup campaign - the first of its kind since the Boland bill was signed into law in August.

"We got tired of waiting around for people to start doing something," said Carter, a Woodland Hills resident. "We would like to get busy mapping out an initiative. We are not going to study it - we are going to do it."

Boland and Riordan said they have not abandoned the breakup cause, but that the task is more complicated than most realize.

"This is not a simple issue and it's not going to be a simple process," said Boland, R-Granada Hills. "We need all our ducks in order first."

Riordan agreed with Boland, saying moving forward without careful analysis could result in failure.

"They have to know exactly what we are doing to get through this minefield," the mayor said. "It's going to take two to three years to do a breakup. You have to develop these plans and they have to be well thought-out."

Boland's legislation makes it easier to divide the school district by reducing the number of signatures needed to qualify a ballot measure, and by eliminating the school district's veto power.

Proponents say smaller districts will mean better local control. Opponents say that, in itself, breaking up the district will not mean classroom improvements.

Using $40,000 of his own money, Riordan hired UCLA's School of Education two months ago to analyze both new and old legal requirements. The study also will determine whether a think tank, funded with government money or the money of a government official, can legally propose its own detailed vision for how the district should be divided.

"Basically, the question comes down to whether they can develop a plan or if you have to legally have activists coming to you with their own plans," Riordan said.

Riordan said he will meet with members of the study group next week, and if most of the analysis is complete, he will schedule a community meeting.

Boland said she has been meeting with Riordan and with the group at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Boland, who estimates that a breakup drive will cost $1 million, said she hopes to secure enough donations within the next few weeks to hire an attorney and a staff member to help any community breakup groups that might form.

The money also could be used if communities wish to continue using the UCLA group.

"I am the facilitator of this effort," Boland said. "I can see my job as the person who helps them and what I was doing was working to get money in the bank for the community."

Boland said she was unaware of the South Central group's action Thursday but wishes it would have waited a little longer until one unified plan could be developed.

"I would love to see one plan, one initiative, one measure on the ballot, so everyone is doing it at one time," she said. "If that's what they want to do, it's their choice. That's why I (carried) the bill, so communities could do this."

The inner-city group is now awaiting approval of its map and, once that's secured, it can begin a petition drive.

"We have to now determine if the map and the legal (boundary) descriptions conform to the legal requirements prescribed by the state Board of Equalization," said Marc Forgy, secretary to the county committee. "If they do, we issue the legal petition and they begin gathering signatures."

The Valley breakup meeting will be held from 9:30 to 11:30 a.m. Saturday at the Los Angeles Times Valley offices, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth.

CAPTION(S):

MAP

CARVING UP L.A. UNIFIED