Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : School Advocacy on Prop. 174 Restricted

LANCASTER — A Los Angeles Superior Court judge on Thursday ordered the Westside Union School District to stop using its resources to advocate only opposition to the controversial school voucher initiative on the Nov. 2 ballot.

Judge Diane Wayne issued a limited temporary restraining order against the 5,300-student district in response to a lawsuit filed Tuesday against Westside and five other Central and Southern California school districts, as well as the state Department of Education.

The suit charged the school districts and the Education Department with using public funds to campaign against Proposition 174, which would provide $2,600 vouchers to parents to pay for their children’s education at public or private schools.

But Wayne issued the restraining order only against Westside, writing in her tentative ruling that the district must present both sides of any state ballot initiative if it addresses such political matters at all.

The judge said that in other districts, such as Los Angeles Unified, for example, administrators had corrected any incidents in which only one side was distributed.

But in Westside, where Supt. George (Bud) Reams has been an outspoken critic of the initiative, administrators had not acted to provide information on both sides of the issue, Wayne said.

Reams said a decision will be made in the next few days whether the Lancaster district will provide pro- and anti-voucher literature or stop addressing the proposition altogether.

He said that despite the district’s loss in court, “the Westside Union School District has not used any school funds, employee time or school equipment for any political purposes.”

The anti-Proposition 174 literature, he said, was prepared by the California Teachers Assn. and other organizations opposed to the measure and had been available until the lawsuit was filed at offices of the district’s 10 campuses.

Westside made the material available to the public only after consulting with its attorney, he said. “We were told we had to be prepared to make pro-174 literature available if supporters gave it (to us). We were told we didn’t have to solicit it.”

Material supporting the voucher initiative was never provided to the district for distribution, Reams said. Now, the district will “comply completely with the provisions of the temporary restraining order,” he said.

Bruce Adelstein, the Los Angeles attorney who filed the suit on behalf of a parent and taxpayers, said he had hoped the judge would include all six school districts in the ruling.

“It was a smaller victory than we would have liked, but it’s a victory,” he said.

With little more than a week until the election, Adelstein said the next step is simply to watch and see if school district employees continue to distribute only anti-voucher material.

“I think it’s ironic,” he said, “that in addition to outspending us . . . school district employees have to use public resources to get their message out.”

Other school districts named in the case were Los Angeles Unified, Irvine Unified in Orange County, Berryessa Union in Santa Clara County, and Panama-Buena Vista and Standard, both in Kern County.