Choice Won’t Alter Breakup Efforts, Valley Activists Say

Friday’s appointment of Ruben Zacarias as the Los Angeles school district’s new superintendent came as no surprise in the San Fernando Valley, where even leaders of the breakup movement said the veteran, home-grown administrator was the obvious choice.

Still, staunch advocates of breaking up the mammoth school district said that not even Zacarias, a Chatsworth resident who has pledged reform, would alter their plans to create a separate Valley school district.

“This district is just too big,” former Assemblywoman Paula Boland said Friday. “It’s too big for one superintendent. It’s too big for anybody to bring back.”

Boland said she would keep an eye on Zacarias over the next two years as a plan to create two new Valley school districts wends its way through county and state agencies. But she said she isn’t expecting much change from the status quo.

Neither is Tony Alcala, an East Valley parent who works part-time for the district and whose two sons attended school in the Los Angeles Unified School District. Although Alcala said he is pleased to have a Latino superintendent, he said Zacarias may be another part of the problematic school system, entrenched in a bureaucracy that has focused more on politics than education.

“I feel that we’re going to do business as usual,” Alcala said. “You think the board is going to select somebody who’s going to tell them what to do? No, they were going to get someone who’ll do what they say.”

Alcala acknowledged that Zacarias--a 31-year district employee--has good connections throughout the district, and that as a Valley resident, he will be sensitive to the needs of Valley schools. But Alcala said he does not expect Zacarias to significantly change the system, especially the school board.

Others interviewed agreed that the 68-year-old insider will have his work cut out for him in changing and improving the 670,000-student school system with a school board that has a reputation for micro-managing.

“If he’s allowed to take the lead of the school district then he can make changes,” said Fenton Avenue School Principal Joe Lucente, who’s known Zacarias for 20 years. “It really depends on the relationship he has with the school board. If they continue to micro-manage then things will stay the same.”

Stephanie Carter, a parent who has helped lead the breakup effort, said Zacarias seemed the likeliest of the three candidates for the job to effect reform.

“My personal opinion is that Ruben has always been the best candidate,” said Carter. “ . . . I think there can be a good possibility for change and he may effect the change the fastest.”

Lynda Levitan, a parent and director of education for the Valley-based 31st District Parent-Teacher-Student Assn., said Zacarias simply needs time in the No. 1 position before people pass judgment.

“I think that he’s definitely underrated,” Levitan said of Zacarias. “I think people see him as just real quiet and mild-mannered and they’ve interpreted that as being a weakness in him and as not being effective.”

But Levitan continued “when you’re second it’s real different than when you’re in charge. . . . I can’t foretell the future, but I don’t know that [business as usual] would necessarily be the case. I don’t think that Ruben will be a puppet of the school board. But, I think that people really need to give him a fair chance.”