Kids Matter, Not Adult Egos

City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo is pushing to conduct surprise building and safety inspections at public schools. Los Angeles Unified School District Supt. Roy Romer is fighting to keep him out. Their shoving match is interfering with what should be their common goal: making what everyone acknowledges are aging, poorly maintained schools safe for kids.

The sorry state of many Los Angeles schools is no secret. Wretched restrooms get the most press, but the slum-like conditions range from falling ceiling tiles to peeling, lead-based paint.

Public school construction is subject to state regulation. Once the facilities are built, however, California provides no oversight. Maintenance is left to school districts to monitor -- or not. Until two years ago, the LAUSD had no districtwide inspections.

Delgadillo last month issued a legal opinion that, in the absence of state oversight, local governments could do inspections. But in pitching his hastily developed plan to the City Council, he both oversimplified how it would work and underplayed what the school district was already doing.

Delgadillo told a council committee Wednesday that a pilot program to inspect five schools could be completed in as little as three weeks at no cost to the city. But the head of city code enforcement said that he would need at least two months to research standards, since the city hasn’t inspected public schools before. City inspectors would also have to put aside the jobs they do now -- as if Los Angeles doesn’t have enough slumlords, graffiti, junked cars, weed-choked lots and dirty parks to keep them busy.

In the meantime, Delgadillo discounts districtwide inspections that Romer initiated two years ago, complaining that inspectors give schools advance notice and arguing that the district can’t objectively inspect itself. Yet inspection results released in June rated 42% of schools poor and just 3% good; this hardly seems like sugarcoating. (For individual schools, see the district Web site, www.laschools.org/oehs.) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency promotes the program as a national model.

Of course, what looks good on paper won’t mean anything if the problems cited don’t get fixed. Only action will overcome parents’ skepticism after decades of neglect.

If the goal is getting schools fixed, Delgadillo can get there faster -- and at less cost to the city’s own responsibilities -- by building on what the LAUSD has already done. Rather than starting from scratch, for example, he could take the district’s completed inspections and do surprise spot checks on whether repairs had been made. For his part, Romer needs to put aside his feeling of being “dissed” and realize that independent verification would lend credibility to the district’s inspection program.

Rather than approving Delgadillo’s plan, Councilmen Ed Reyes and Tony Cardenas called Wednesday for a timeout. Their committee gave the city attorney and the school district chief 45 days to find a way to work together. Neither side wants to, but adults should be able to put kids ahead of egos.