New Panel to Oversee Reform of School Bureaucracy : Education: Two other board committees will address campus safety issues and try to increase student participation in L.A. district.

In a move that reflects the Los Angeles school district’s restructuring movement, school board President Leticia Quezada announced Monday the formation of a board committee to ensure that the central bureaucracy is made more efficient.

Quezada, who was appointed to her second year as board president this month, also has established a new board panel to deal with school safety issues and another to increase student participation in district issues.

“This coming year is critical for the LAUSD, and the board structure reflects our goal to show that this district will implement effectively the restructuring and accountability plans the board has adopted,” Quezada said, referring to the LEARN school reform plan and a recent audit showing that the district is poorly managed. The Los Angeles Educational Alliance for Restructuring Now plan will give principals, who must work with teachers and parents, decision-making power over budget and curriculum.

School board member Mark Slavkin, who initiated the district management audit, was named to oversee the new audit committee, which will be advised by an outside panel of private-sector business chiefs.

The Arthur Andersen & Co. audit recommended major changes to streamline the district’s central bureaucracy, which it said is slow to respond to problems and is not held accountable for its actions.

Slavkin and Quezada will serve on the audit committee and conduct monthly public meetings. Supt. Sid Thompson has embarked on a major district restructuring that will lead to the elimination of four regional offices and instead create about 25 self-governing clusters of high schools and their feeder campuses.

“We need to be satisfied that this restructuring is indeed taking place,” Slavkin said. “The stakes are too high.”

In another shift, Quezada has named school board member Jeff Horton to lead the board’s Committee of the Whole and has expanded the scope of this panel. All seven board members sit on this non-voting committee. Traditionally, the panel has conducted budget hearings and meets to set agenda items for the next meeting.

Horton said the committee will begin conducting meetings at community schools at night to hold public discussion on major district issues.

“We want the committee meetings to reflect more what our concerns are,” Horton said, adding that the first round will likely focus on the LEARN plan and information about the impending parental choice ballot measure, which would give parents vouchers to send their children to private schools.

Newly elected board member Victoria Castro, whose campaign focused on the urgent need to improve school safety, was named to lead that board committee. School board member Warren Furutani will head a new student affairs panel.