Roberti Will Introduce Bill to Split L.A. School District : Secession: The powerful lawmaker’s support cheers Valley advocates of local control over education issues.

A powerful state senator announced Wednesday that he will propose special legislation to allow the San Fernando Valley to break away from the Los Angeles school district and operate its own schools, a major step forward for the resurgent secession movement.

State Sen. David A. Roberti (D-Van Nuys) told a public meeting on the school issue in Panorama City that he will fight to break up the giant Los Angeles Unified School District so that parents can more easily participate in decisions that affect their children.

“By anybody’s standard, the last reapportionment of the Los Angeles Unified School District was a travesty of justice as far as the San Fernando Valley is concerned,” Roberti said. “We absolutely need Valley representation and a Valley district.”

The announcement by Roberti--president pro tem of the state Senate and one of the most powerful men in the Legislature--bolstered the hopes of proponents of Valley secession.

“There is a consensus now that the LAUSD is nothing more than a runaway train and that the Valley is the caboose,” said Bob Scott, chairman of Valley Advocates for Local Unified Education (VALUE), who presented Roberti and other elected officials with the group’s mock declaration of independence from Los Angeles Unified.

“The support exhibited by members of the community and elected officials indicates to me that we have a very good opportunity to be successful at this time,” Scott said.

The drive to withdraw from the Los Angeles district--an idea that has been talked of for 30 years--received new impetus this summer after an acrimonious debate over new school district boundaries. Under a redistricting plan adopted by the Los Angeles City Council, one of two seats based entirely in the Valley was eliminated from the seven-member school board, a change that critics contend sharply reduced the Valley’s influence.

A separate Valley district would still be the state’s second largest, with about 180,000 students.

Organizers of the secession effort hope to use special state legislation to skirt a host of administrative and procedural requirements by county and state education agencies responsible for school district configuration. For example, under current regulations, those in favor of breaking away would first have to receive permission from the Los Angeles school board itself, which most of those involved concede would be highly unlikely.

Sandy Miller, Roberti’s chief of staff, said Roberti has requested that a legislative analyst review and analyze the fiscal condition of the Los Angeles school district and has also sent questionnaires to constituents seeking input on the proposal to create a separate Valley school district. He also asked his staff in Sacramento to begin drafting a variety of legislative proposals on the matter.

Senate hearings have been scheduled on the matter for Jan. 22 and 29 in Los Angeles and the Valley, she said.

Other officials who attended the forum sponsored by VALUE, including Assemblyman Terry B. Friedman (D-Encino), praised Roberti’s proposal, but said it did not go far enough in decentralizing the district.

“I believe it is time to break up the failing, bloated and over-bureaucratized Los Angeles Unified School District,” Friedman said. “It is time to give control to parents and teachers.”

Los Angeles school board member Roberta Weintraub, one of two members of the board elected from the Valley, said she supports breaking the district into 15 to 20 smaller districts. “Because of the fiscal condition of the school district today, this would be an ideal time to take education and make it less political,” Weintraub said.

Roberti said that although he also supports “a multiplicity of districts” in theory, trying to establish them in the present economic climate would be too difficult. “It’s going to be tough enough to get one district, so let’s start there,” he counseled.

Wednesday’s public forum was the first official meeting sponsored by a newly formed coalition devoted to breaking up the Los Angeles school district, which sprawls over 708 square miles.

The concept of a district reorganization is supported by a number of Valley civic and parent organizations, including the United Chambers of Commerce of the San Fernando Valley and the 31st District Parent Teacher Student Assn.

Several local lawmakers have thrown their support behind the idea, including Los Angeles board member Julie Korenstein--whose political base is in the Valley--as well as Los Angeles City Councilman Joel Wachs, who also attended the hearing, and Assemblywoman Paula L. Boland (R-Granada Hills).

Los Angeles school board member Jeff Horton also attended the hearing, but opposed secession. “This is a time to reform the district, but things like this . . . making the San Fernando Valley a separate district, which would be the second largest in California, takes people’s energy and attention away from the job we have to do,” Horton said.

Legal experts familiar with school desegregation cases say that a Valley breakaway could be challenged in court, regardless of whether it is accomplished through the usual channels or through special legislation. Experts say a split could violate desegregation rulings because it would increase racial imbalance in the remaining Los Angeles district. Anglo enrollment in the remaining Los Angeles district would drop from 13% to 7.4%, according to an analysis this summer by The Times.

A bill to divide the Los Angeles district was passed by both houses of the Legislature in the early 1970s but was ultimately vetoed by then-Gov. Ronald Reagan. Roberti, who endorsed the idea of a separate district in July after the redistricting controversy, had previously expressed interest in sponsoring a similar bill to allow the Valley to secede.