EMOTIONS FLARE OVER LAUSD BREAKUP.

Byline: David R. Baker Staff Writer

PACOIMA - Punctuated by moments of frustration, anger and hope, the first public hearing on plans to break apart the Los Angeles Unified School District drew a vocal crowd Wednesday to San Fernando High School.

About 165 people came to discuss and debate a petition to create two separate school districts in the San Fernando Valley.

``The larger the school district, the more removed it becomes from classrooms, parents and teachers,'' said Stephanie Carter, a leader of Finally Restoring Excellence in Education (FREE) and one of the first people to sign the breakup petition.

``We want school districts that are small enough that the superintendent can visit every campus at least once a year,'' she said.

Supporters of the petition circulated by FREE greatly outnumbered opponents in the high school's auditorium.

The school district itself sent only one representative, a member of its legal staff, who told members of the County Committee on School District Reorganization that the LAUSD has no official position on the breakup plan.

Instead committee members listened to a long series of speakers giving two-minute tales of disillusionment with the immense 711,000-student district.

FREE leaders said creating two smaller districts within the San Fernando Valley is the only way to salvage public education in the area.

Bert Boeckmann, co-chairman of FREE, noted that the school district's new management team has been pushing for reforms, including splitting the district into 11 semi-independent parts.

``You may ask, Why not wait and see?'' he said. ``My answer would be, We've lost faith in the ability of the Los Angeles Unified School District to reform itself.''

Boeckmann cited criticism of the district's performance by the state's Little Hoover Commission to back up his points.

Many of those who spoke drew on far more personal experiences.

Moonyeen Powers, an adult education teacher in the district, talked about how slow district administrators are to respond to problems compared with their counterparts elsewhere.

Powers said that when she used to teach in the Glendale School District, she could get an immediate response when notifying district officials about learning disabilities in her students.

In contrast, Los Angeles school district officials took three months to test a student Powers feared was dyslexic and did nothing to follow up, despite her repeated attempts to get attention, she said.

She said the student eventually dropped out.

``This is someone who wanted to learn and wanted to learn and the system failed her,'' Powers said.

A handful of people spoke out against the proposal.

Tony Lopez, vice president of the Valley chapter of the League of United Latino American Citizens, argued that two districts in the San Fernando Valley would divide the Latino community.

He said he favored a single new school district in the Valley.

``The Latino population has always suffered from the theory of divide and conquer,'' he said.

Lopez said he would prefer to see the San Fernando Valley secede from Los Angeles and form its own unified school district.

The meeting was the first of two that will be held by the Los Angeles County Committee on School District Reorganization, which is conducting a study of the breakup proposal.

After a second hearing on the plan, scheduled for Feb. 24 at Birmingham High School, the committee will vote on whether to recommend approval to the state Board of Education.

If the state board approves the plan, it would be placed before local voters in an election.

Wednesday's meeting gave backers of the petition as well as its opponents a chance to argue their positions, with all comments being forward to the county's consultant working on the study.