Schools Plan but Colleges Wait on Lawmakers : L.A. Unified: Creating new academic standards is one of several future-focused projects.

What kind of year is in store for the Los Angeles Unified School District?

By most accounts, 1996 will bring 12 months of planning for future years, including establishing new achievement standards, getting more schools on the road to reform and keeping tabs on a movement to break up the nation’s second-largest school district.

Supt. Sid Thompson, whose job evaluation is based in part on student achievement, plans to spend the first half of the year creating new academic standards. By June, he hopes to present the Board of Education with specific achievement benchmarks that students must attain before graduating. Those standards could be in place by fall.

The board, meanwhile, will spend considerable time reviewing a proposed court consent decree that could dramatically alter the district’s special education programs by assigning more of these students to mainstream rather than separate classrooms.

The board plans to hold public hearings in the first months of the year, then begin outlining how the changes might affect the 65,000 students needing special education over the next five years.

District schools will spend the first part of the year determining the level of staff and parental interest in the LEARN reform program, which allows campuses more decision-making authority. By mid-March, the fourth round of schools seeking to become part of LEARN will be announced.

School district officials will also continue to examine how the so-called Rodriquez consent decree will affect school budgets. That school-spending settlement, which calls for redistributing funding among schools in a more equitable way, will dramatically change cash flow to some campuses and could affect hiring decisions. It will take effect in 1997.

Politically, the school district next year will continue to keep tabs on the breakup movement sprouting throughout the city. While officials have said they would not actively protest breakup proposals, they do plan to closely monitor the activities of outside groups seeking to dismantle the system.

Also, the district expects to expand its efforts to improve attendance and campus safety. Some school crime rates have dropped, and officials hope to continue that trend into the new year.