Buoyed by Hayes’ Win, School Reformers Plan Major Changes

There was hope in the air Wednesday at the Los Angeles Board of Education.

Genethia Hayes’ narrow victory over incumbent member Barbara Boudreaux in Tuesday’s runoff election created a majority of reformers on the seven-member panel and set the stage for a possible overhaul of the city’s beleaguered public education system.

Hayes, executive director of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference’s Los Angeles branch, wants a comprehensive audit of the Los Angeles Unified School District’s $7.1-billion budget. Caprice Young, with a background in public and private finance, is calling for a five-year plan to chart a new course for the district and its 700,000 students.

Mike Lansing, who runs the San Pedro Boys and Girls Club, seeks a board retreat aimed at quashing the kind of squabbling that has damaged relations among members and their staffs. David Tokofsky, the one incumbent who won reelection, has vowed to attract and retain quality teachers, whatever it takes.

All of them envision shortened meetings and fewer closed sessions, with more time set aside for high policy decisions and less for fighting over details and micromanaging the superintendent.

“There are going to be a lot of expectations, but there is so much room for improvement at L.A. Unified that it can’t help but come up,” said Fernando Guerra, head of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University.

Guerra sees a convergence of forces that almost ensures success, including a clear mandate from the voters and an influx of new funds from state reform initiatives and Proposition BB.

But Guerra said he believes that a breakup of the district will be inevitable if the reforms fail.

“Frankly,” he said, “if in two years they haven’t made some changes, I would say, ‘What’s left? You’ve got money. You got the leadership. It must be the size.’ ”

Meanwhile, the newcomers and the three members who were not facing reelection must choose a board president at their first meeting July 6. By Jan. 15, they must decide whether to extend Supt. Ruben Zacarias’ contract another year.

Then too they face a host of enormous ongoing challenges, among them: implementation of the anti-bilingual education law, Proposition 227; termination of social promotion and creation of intervention programs for 139,000 students at risk of being held back; and establishment of guidelines to prevent a repeat of the polluted mess that is the still-unfinished $200-million Belmont Learning Complex near downtown.

Given these hurdles, Young cautioned against expecting massive improvements overnight.

“The new board has got to put together a five-year plan,” she said. “Then I think we will see an accumulation of incremental changes that we will look back on one day as ultimately sweeping.

“Right now, however, the board structure and its meetings are not conducive to good governance,” she added. “They are not focused on major policy issues.”

Hayes agreed: “What we’re looking at is a good, strong start. The new board configuration means that children will come first--whatever it takes. No more excuses. No more adult agendas.”

Officials were still tallying 1st District votes Wednesday. With 99.13% counted, Hayes had 23,674 votes to Boudreaux’s 22,429.

If improved governance is the goal, then the new board has its work cut out, said David Marsh, an education professor at USC.

“What we can hope for is better collaboration focused on results, accountability and the specific improvements [the board] should be after--not 50 [goals], but five or six,” he said. “But the board will have to be politically tough-minded.”

Observers will be watching to see whether Tokofsky and the newcomers can flex their muscles against Mayor Richard Riordan, who raised $2 million on their behalf, and the politically powerful 40,000-member United Teachers-Los Angeles.

Union President Day Higuchi sees rosy relations ahead. “We now have a real opportunity to show the rest of the world that [the district] can do great things,” he said.

But the board members will be tested as soon as they face impending negotiations over employee contracts that expire in July 2000.

Despite warnings from district budget officials of a possible financial pinch next year, the union is gearing up to demand a large pay increase. On the other side, critics of the 2% bonus the board granted this year with virtually no concessions from employees will be calling for strong accountability measures in the new contracts.

Under such pressures, the board must reconcile differences that have caused discord, said former L.A. Supt. Harry Handler.

“The important thing is to become a seven-member board and not a 4-3 board,” he said.