CHARTER HIGH SCHOOLS BAD FOR DISTRICT - ROMER.

Byline: Helen Gao Staff Writer

Condemning charter school efforts at El Camino Real, Granada Hills and Palisades highs, Superintendent Roy Romer warned Tuesday that the breakaway movement threatens to undermine the economic and organizational health of the Los Angeles Unified School District.

``Let me tell you, they represent a large proportion of white students in the district,'' said Romer. ``It not only represents that, it represents the upper economic groups of the district. These are the facts. Nobody is racist in this room.''

Parents, teachers and administrators who packed the board room for public hearings on a half-dozen charter school petitions booed the superintendent. The board is set to vote on charter status for Granada Hills and Palisades on Tuesday, and on El Camino later.

Romer, who prefaced his remarks by saying he supports the concept of charter schools run independently of the LAUSD, said the growing charter movement threatens the district's ability to win passage of another school construction bond in 2004. Since 1997, the LAUSD has won passage of two increases in property taxes totaling more than $5 billion, with state matching funds sharply increasing the district's ability to build new schools and modernize old ones.

``I am very thoughtful about the residents near the three schools,'' he said. ``When they are charter schools, we need their support. They are some of the strongest among us for this district and its future. There is a very great strength in these three schools. We get a lot of pride in what they are.''

The three schools' charter petitions have been controversial because the schools are among the highest-achieving in a largely low-performing district, although standardized test scores have improved under Romer's leadership.

Historically, the charter school movement has been confined to low- performing campuses in the northeast San Fernando Valley and the inner city.

According to demographic data posted on the LAUSD Web site, 43 percent of Granada Hills' student population is white, while the numbers at El Camino Real and Palisades are 50.6 percent and 43.7 percent, respectively.

Only 9.4 percent of the students districtwide are white, with the majority - 71.9 percent - identified as Hispanic.

Granada Hills parents said they were insulted by Romer's comments, stressing that their school is diverse.

``He should visit our school. He's never been there,'' said Leila Vickers. ``He needs to come and visit and see what we are like. My kids are half Hispanic. They feel comfortable at the school. This is not a racist environment.''

Vickers said even after Granada Hills becomes a charter school, she will continue to support the district's program to build new schools.

``We are for public schools. We are not being selfish here,'' she said. ``We will support what the school district thinks is needed to educate children.''

Sonja Eddings Brown, another Granada Hills parent, said wanting to become a charter school has nothing to do with race or socio-economics.

Granada Hills, she said, aspires to become a laboratory of innovations for the rest of the school district.

``We are just a school with an idea,'' Brown said. ``We are hoping we may be able to do something at Granada Hills that might provide other schools in the district with solutions.''

An alternative form of public education, charter schools are exempt from most parts of the state Education Code that govern traditional public schools. They enjoy the freedom to experiment with new curricula, along with control of their funding and operations.

Parents, educators and community leaders operate the schools under contract with school districts. If they fail to achieve their goals to raise student achievement, they can be shut down.

``Granada Hills is still part of LAUSD,'' even after it becomes a charter campus, said Brown. ``When we succeed, L.A. Unified succeeds.''

Another Granada Hills parent and teacher who didn't want to be named retorted that it's unfair to not let her school become a charter simply because the district is unable to solve its problems. ``We can't fix what is going on downtown in overcrowded schools, but we can fix what is happening at our school.''

Romer raised a host of other concerns about the growing charter school movement at least three different times during Tuesday's lengthy school board meeting.

At one point, he noted that the district has a massive unfunded liability in lifetime health benefits for teachers.

``If you have this district taken apart piece by piece, you have a smaller and smaller base to pay a $6.6 billion liability,'' he said. ``If we start to pepper this geographic area with 100 conversions, I don't know how we will manage it.''

School board member Mike Lansing echoed some of the superintendent's concerns.

``If we are just all islands unto ourselves, some schools would really prosper and others would be up to the leadership of schools and the community that is really pushing for the charter,'' he said. ``Bureaucracy at times has value,'' such as interscholastic events that bring together students from throughout the district for various competitions, Lansing said.

As philosophical debates about the pros and cons of the charter school movement rage on, a more practical dispute is unfolding over the LAUSD's proposal to levy a hefty facilities fees on charter schools that occupy district facilities.

District officials have called for charging Granada Hills, Palisades, Vaughn Next Century Learning Center, Fenton Avenue Charter School and Pacoima Elementary School $2.86 per square foot of space.

All five campuses are contesting the fee, which would cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars a year.

Fenton officials said it's unfair to charge their school a facilities fee when they have invested $6.5 million in maintaining and improving the campus over the past decade.

Vaughn officials said they have invested $3.8 million in their campus in the past decade, while at the same time paying the district for day-to-day maintenance.

``We are not going to pay. They are going to have to kick us out,''said Yvonne Chan, principal of Vaughn.

Joe Lucente, head of Fenton, saw the facilities fee as an attempt by the district to undermine the charter school movement.

``They don't want conversion charters,'' she said.