3 Already in Running to Fill Armor School Post

The scramble has begun for David Armor’s West San Fernando Valley seat on the Los Angeles school board.

Betty Blake, who has held a variety of leadership posts in Valley PTAs since 1958, told Armor of her intention to seek the job moments after he startled board members Monday by announcing he plans to resign, effective April 30, to take a job with the Defense Department in Washington.

Barbara Romey, a paid fund-raiser in Armor’s campaign and one of the leaders of the movement against year-round schools, said she started thinking about running after a Monday night gathering of close friends at Armor’s Woodland Hills home.

And Elizabeth Ginsburg, a former Chatsworth High School government teacher whom Armor defeated in last June’s election, said Tuesday that she would still like the post.

Armor, 46, told fellow board members Monday that he had been asked to serve as a deputy to the assistant secretary of defense for force management and personnel. Armor, a consultant specializing in school desegregation cases, said he has had several job offers since joining the school board nine months ago.

How to Fill the Seat?

The remaining six members of the school board have several options in filling Armor’s seat.

They can hold a special election, a costly route that some say the district cannot afford; leave the position open until the municipal elections in June, 1987; appoint a member for the rest of Armor’s four-year term or appoint a replacement and hold an election coinciding with the 1987 municipal elections.

The board has asked the county counsel’s advice on those options, according to Bill Rivera, special assistant to Supt. Harry Handler.

“I don’t think that people in the West Valley would sit still over someone appointed by the board,� said Wayne Johnson, president of United Teachers, Los Angeles, the largest teachers’ union in the district. “If they are going to have to appoint someone, it is our opinion that they should appoint the person who finished second in the last election.�

That person would be Ginsburg, whose candidacy was endorsed by the teachers’ union.

‘I’m Available’

“I’m free. I’m available. I’m open to anything at this point,� said Ginsburg, 60, who retired from her Chatsworth teaching position last June.

Blake, 56, who finished third in the April, 1985, primary, said she has remained active in volunteer positions with the Los Angeles Unified School District.

“It’s very important to get somebody on the board who cares about public education,� Blake said. “I would like very much to be a board member.�

Romey, 38, an Armor confidante, was active in the fight to keep Prairie Street School in Northridge open. She is working now to gather support for legislation sponsored by State. Sen Alan Robbins (D-Van Nuys) that would require a vote of parents in a school district before that district could place the majority of its schools on a year-round calender.

If passed and signed by the governor, the legislation could effectively end the Los Angeles district’s plan to gradually increase the number of year-round schools to accommodate its fast-growing student population.

‘I’m Really Scared’

“I’m thinking about it. No decisions have been made yet,� Romey said Tuesday. “I’m really scared that somebody might appoint a person and not appoint someone who will represent us.�

When filling vacancies in other districts, board members have appointed someone they see as representing the ethnic and political leaning of the district in question. In 1979, for instance, the board appointed the Rev. Lewis Bohler Jr., a black Episcopal priest who had been active in the civil rights movement, to fill the unexpired term of Diane Watson, a black board member who was elected to the State Senate. Bohler was appointed to the South Los Angeles seat on the condition that he would not run for election.

In 1980, Filipino businessman Anthony Trias was appointed to fill the unexpired term of Kathleen Brown Rice, who left the board because her husband was transferred to New York City. Trias represented the ethnically diverse Hollywood-Wilshire Corridor before being defeated by Jackie Goldberg in 1983.

Conservative Hue

The West Valley, which is defined by the school district as the area west of the San Diego Freeway and north of the Santa Monica Mountains, has a population that is predominantly white, affluent and conservative. It is the base that launched the political careers of Rep. Bobbi Fiedler (R-Northridge), State Sen. Ed Davis, (R-Valencia) and former Rep. Barry Goldwater Jr.

Low public school enrollment in the West Valley--brought about by white flight, expensive housing that barred many young families and more than a decade of low Anglo birthrates--led to the closing of 19 schools.

The sagging enrollment also allowed the district to use the empty space by busing in minority students as part of a voluntary desegregation program and students from crowded schools in the eastern and central sections of the district.