Secession Movement Heads to Sacramento : Lomita: Effort to take control of schools from LAUSD is in hands of State Board of Education after receiving county panel’s OK.

Lomita’s proposal to wrest control of its schools from the Los Angeles Unified School District is headed for Sacramento after earning approval from Los Angeles County education officials.

The Committee on School District Organization voted 7 to 2 on Jan. 4 to recommend that Lomita be allowed to form its own school district, putting the proposal in the hands of the State Board of Education. State officials typically take four to six months to decide such requests, committee spokesman Greg Magnuson said.

The committee recommended the plan despite concerns that the proposal provides too few special education programs, including athletics, fine arts, advanced-placement classes and programs for gifted students. Committee members also questioned budget provisions for maintenance of school buildings.

“My feeling is they felt we would be such a small district, we could not offer the variety of classes for high school that L.A. Unified could offer,” said secession spokeswoman Cindy Grant. “I think that could be a valid concern, but we’re going to do everything in our power to offer all the classes we can, because we want nothing but the best of districts.”

The Committee to Unify Lomita’s Schools began the attempt to secede when it delivered a petition with 3,099 signatures to county officials in March. County officials followed by verifying signatures and conducting public hearings on the proposal before making their recommendation.

If the state board approves the plan, it will be placed on the ballot. The citizens of Lomita and neighboring voters in San Pedro and Harbor City will make the final decision, probably in the November election, Magnuson said.

Lomita tried once before to break away from the mammoth district. The state board killed the bid in 1987, citing concerns that the secession would make L.A. Unified less integrated by removing Lomita’s predominantly white students. Minority students bused to Lomita would have had to return to heavily minority schools.

Since that time, many younger minority families have moved to Lomita, causing the schools to become more integrated than the city itself. The proposed school district’s population would be 43.8% white in a city that is 68.4% white.

The county’s staff report “agreed that the school district will be significantly more integrated than the city,” Grant said.

The proposed district would serve about 2,000 students attending Eshelman Avenue Elementary and Lomita Elementary, a magnet school. Fleming Middle School would become a combined junior and senior high school.