South Bay : They’d Rather Compromise on Schools

After fighting nearly a decade to leave the Los Angeles Unified School District, residents in the Eastview section of Rancho Palos Verdes have opted for a new strategy: compromise.

If district officials agree to allow Eastview students to attend schools in the Palos Verdes Peninsula Unified School District, residents will drop efforts to force the transfer of two schools to the peninsula district.

“We feel our children should be going to school in their own city,” said Eastview parent and proposal author April Sandell. “This way there won’t have to be any property transfer.”

Before it was annexed to Rancho Palos Verdes in 1983, the Eastview section had been unincorporated county land. Its two schools--Dotson Middle School and Crestwood Elementary-- had been and remain part of the Los Angeles district.

Residents have fought to transfer the schools and their students to the more upscale district, but the matter has been mired in court.

LAUSD official Richard Vladovic said the compromise proposal was under consideration but that no decision had been made. Peninsula school officials recently sent letters to Eastview parents in support of the effort.